Hating Joe Lieberman

Sen. Joe Lieberman's threat to take down health care reform has triggered liberal outrage — and conservative bemusement

hating joe lieberman
(Image credit: (Corbis/Ramin Talaie))

Liberals have rarely been as furious as they are at Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent who has threatened to withdraw his pivotal vote for health-care reform over a Medicare policy point he's previously supported. "If you think you are sick of Joe Lieberman now," says Jim Shea, a columnist in The Hartford Courant, "just wait until you get sick." Liberal bloggers have attacked Lieberman as "a joke" and a mass-murderer, not to mention, "petty, sanctimonious, childish, vindictive, thin-skinned, and monstrously self-impressed." Even so, it appears Democrats will drop the disputed part of the bill to appease him. With every possible vote needed to pass a bill, though, are liberals' "venomous" attacks short-sighted? (Watch Joe Lieberman's Medicare flip-flop)

Lieberman is behaving like a "sociopath": This is turning into "a hostage standoff," says Steve Benen in Washington Monthly, "with Joe Lieberman playing the role of the proverbial gunman who isn't bluffing." If Democrats don't pay his ransom, he'll pull the trigger — and in this case, if he kills health care reform, thousands of uninsured Americans will die. How is that not "sociopathic indifference"?

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