Chutzpah!
by digby
Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said he had not read it either and wasn’t inclined simply to scold the president.
“I’d prefer to see us solve the problem,” Lieberman told reporters.
Yes. Joe doesn’t believe in scolding presidents does he?
The implications for our country are so serious that I feel a responsibility to my constituents in Connecticut, as well as to my conscience, to voice my concerns forthrightly and publicly. And I can think of no more appropriate place to do that than on this great Senate floor.
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To begin with, I must respectfully disagree with the president’s contention that his relationship with Monica Lewinsky and the way in which he misled us about it is nobody’s business but his family’s and that even presidents have private lives, as he said.
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But there is more to this than modern media intrusiveness. The president is not just the elected leader of our country. He is as presidential scholar Clinton Rossiter (ph) observed, and I quote, “the one man distillation of the American people.” And as President Taft said at another time, “the personal embodiment and representative of their dignity and majesty.”
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In this case, the president apparently had extramarital relations with an employee half his age and did so in the workplace in the vicinity of the Oval Office. Such behavior is not just inappropriate. It is immoral…
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The president’s intentional and consistent statements, more deeply,may also undercut the trust that the American people have in his word. Under the Constitution, as presidential scholar Newsted (ph) has noted, the president’s ultimate source of authority, particularly his moral authority, is the power to persuade, to mobilize public opinion, to build consensus behind a common agenda. And at this, the president has been extraordinarily effective.
But that power hinges on the president’s support among the American people and their faith and confidence in his motivations and agenda, yes; but also in his word.
As Teddy Roosevelt once explained, “My power vanishes into thin air the instant that my fellow citizens, who are straight and honest, cease to believe that I represent them and fight for what is straight and honest. That is all the strength that I have,” Roosevelt said.
Sadly, with his deception, President Clinton may have weakened the great power and strength that he possesses, of which President Roosevelt spoke.
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Mr. President, I said at the outset that this was a very difficult statement to write and deliver. That is true, very true. And it is true in large part because it is so personal and yet needs to be public, but also because of my fear that it will appear unnecessarily judgmental. I truly regret this.
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But the president, by virtue of the office he sought and was elected to, has traditionally been held to a higher standard. This is as it should be because the American president, as I quoted earlier, is not just the one man distillation of the American people, but today the most powerful person in the world. And as such, the consequences of his misbehavior, even private misbehavior, are much greater than that of an average citizen, a CEO or even a Senator.
That’s what I believe presidential scholar James David Barber (ph) in his book “The Presidential Character” was getting at when he wrote that the public demands quote, “a sense of legitimacy from and in the presidency. There is more to this than dignity — more than propriety. The president is expected to personify our betterness in an inspiring way; to express in what he does and is, not just what he says, a moral idealism which in much of the public mind is the very opposite of politics.”
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… the transgressions the president has admitted to are too consequential for us to walk away and leave the impression for our children today and for our posterity tomorrow that what he acknowledges he did within the White House is acceptable behavior for our nation’s leader. On the contrary, as I have said, it is wrong and unacceptable and should be followed by some measure of public rebuke and accountability.
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Let us as a nation honestly confront the damage that the president’s actions over the last seven months have caused, but not to the exclusion of the good that his leadership has done over the past six years, nor at the expense of our common interest as Americans. And let us be guided by the conscience of the Constitution, which calls on us to place the common good above any partisan or personal interest, as we now in our time work together to resolve this serious challenge to our democracy.
I thank the chair. I thank my colleagues. And I yield the floor.
Man, to hear him talk you would have thought the president had blatantly defied the law and illegally spied on American citizens without a warrant or something.
Lieberman, with his usual political tin ear, thought that he was being Barry Goldwater or Howard Baker by stepping across party lines to condemn a president of his own party. Unfortunately for him the citizens of this country don’t find blow jobs to be quite the threat to the Republic that he does.
The day Al Gore picked that insufferable, sanctimonious gasbag as the Democratic nominee for Vice president was one of the lowest of my life. That speech was the single most disloyal public political act of my lifetime. The Republicans were shrill, shrieking hyenas, foaming at the mouth, circling in for the kill — and that preening showboater stepped into the well of the senate and used his image as a moral exemplar to try to validate their bullshit partisan witch hunt. It was unforgivable. But he got lots of fawning press coverage from the Republicans and the beltway establishment and it evidently got into his blood. He can’t stop doing it.
Needless to say, after that loathsome performance, I have never expected Liebermann to do the right thing and he’s never disappointed me. Today is par for the course. (Jane reports that even his pro choice cred in in tatters since he supports the right of catholic hospitals to deny emergency birth control to rape victims. How … unsurprising.)
But regardless of the high-stepping strategists fluttering around cautioning the Democrats not to “make trouble,” the meme of Republican perfidy and ineptitude is starting to hum below the surface and I believe it will rise in volume over the next two years to a deafening howl. How do I know this? Their talking points sound lamer every day:
Cheney said Monday, “The outrageous proposition that we ought to protect our enemies’ ability to communicate as it plots against America poses a key test of our Democratic leaders.”
“The American people already made their decision,” Cheney added. “They agree with the president.”
If that’s their best argument, it’s probably best to say “Americans think it’s a good idea.” Associating policies with the president is a sure loser. Americans don’t trust him, respect him or like him. At 60% disapproval, saying that Americans agree with the president on anything is the kiss of death.
Ned Lamont is giving Joementum heartburn. Turn up the heat.
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