A CHALLENGER FOR THE REPUBLICANS' FAVORITE RIGHT WING DEMOCRAT?

Since I don't even remotely consider Zell Miller a Democrat, if there's one Democrat upon whom I would call down otherworldly wrath, were I given the opportunity, it would be the pious crook from Connecticut, Joe Lieberman, not just an arch hypocrite and the face of EVERYTHING that is wrong with today's Democratic Party, but also someone who craves the corporate media spotlight and wins it by always being ready to attack other Democrats. Like many progressives I was sickened to find out that there would be no primary challenge for the DLC asshole from Stamford. So wasn't I delighted today when my copy of the NEW HAVEN INDEPENDENT arrived before morning coffee and I saw that Lowell Weicker is mulling over a challenge to the right-wing, war-mongering piece of shit!
Paul Bass reports in a story called "Sleeping Bear Grudge Match?" that Weicker is considering an independent run for his old U.S. Senate seat next. 74 year old Weicker, a former liberal Republican and true progressive, who turned independent in 1990 after he left the Senate to run successfully for governor, was viciously attacked by Lieberman from the Right in their 1988 Senate match-up.

"If he does run," says Bass, "he'll need the support of progressive Democrats to beat Lieberman, the way progressive Democrats catapulted him to the governor's office in 1990. And statewide progressive Dems have been scouring the state for someone to challenge the conservative-leaning Lieberman. There already had been rumblings in the southern part of the state about Weicker possibly running. A Weicker candidacy would focus on the war in Iraq. Lieberman has been a leading supporter of that war from the outset. If Weicker does run, he'll at least have a chance for revenge on a sore point about that nasty 1988 race. Lieberman attacked Weicker then for missing votes in the Senate; he aired a TV commercial of a sleeping bear, an effective personal shot that ushered in a new era of nasty political campaigning in Connecticut. Lieberman's point was that Weicker had become too cavalier about voting and doing his job after three terms in office. Yet Lieberman ended up repeating that record in his third term as a U.S. senator. He spent much of 2003 running for president--and away from his job as senator. He skipped 54 percent of all Senate votes that year. He was absent for every vote on 63 of the 115 days in which the Senate cast votes. According to one estimate, that meant the taxpayers overpaid Lieberman $38,828.79 in salary that year."

I'd expect Independent Weicker to vote to organize the Senate with the Democratic caucus, the way Jeffords has, and I wouldn't hesitate for one second to support him.