RICKIE LEE JONES DOESN'T LIKE RIGHT-WINGERS, DOESN'T LIKE TURNCOATS... AND DOESN'T LIKE JOE LIEBERMAN

I can't believe the electricity went down in North-Central L.A. today-- where I live. Like 3 blocks from me, it was all cool, but I've been off line since 3AM. I want to get to work on some follow-up to yesterday's story on how Joe Lieberman and his fundamentalist and hypocritical allies tried to demonize rock'n'roll and youth culture and use it as a way to raise money and to scare voters. I've been hearing back from dozens of artists and managers today and over the course of the next few days I'll share some of the e-mails I've been getting. The very first one came in from one of the most talented singer-songwriters I ever had the honor of working with, Rickie Lee Jones. Rickie is also one of the best-informed artists I've ever talked with, not just intuitively progressive to the core but also right up to the minute on what's going on in the "real world." She dashed off an e-mail about her own impressions of Lieberman within minutes of reading my post. And... here it is:


Lieberman was the first indication that there were actually Republicans in the Democratic Party.  Forgive my naivety, but before the series of betrayals by Lieberman against important progressive legislation... I thought people with his sensibilities, voting for the war, for the Patriot Act, and voting against Medicare benefits for a very severely taxed generation of elderly ill, and against the few ideological stands the so-called left has been willing to brush up against since Bush took office... here were registered Republicans. Herr Lieberman helped me realize there is not much of a fine line left between the middle of the right and the edge of the left. We have moved so far over that even middle America stands perched on one foot, with it's one strand of hair tossed across its frowning face, trying to straighten the coffee in a cup that will forever be leaning far too right to ever feel balanced again. 

No good American can go out into the street today and not turn gray with nausea at the complacency of every single newspaper, financial institution, and influential individual in the conspiracy to keep this unqualified,  uneducated, unelected criminal in office.  Lieberman was an important candidate, and he, above all of them, is a turn coat who helped to nullify the potency of the left.

-Rickie Lee Jones
February 27, 2006


WEDNESDAY MORNING UPDATE: LIEBERMAN MAY NOT HAVE RLJ, BUT HE DOES HAVE THE GOP!

One of Connecticut's largest newspapers reports today that the Republican Party is talking about endorsing Lieberman in his re-election bid. And why shouldn't they? He votes with them whenever it's important anyway. In fact, one of the fake moderate Republicans in Connecticut, Chris Shays, has already endorsed him (although Lieberman is supposedly campaign a bit for Shays' Democratic opponent, Diane Farrell, who, unlike Lieberman, opposes Bush's occupation of Iraq).