WHAT HAPPENED TO LIEBERMAN'S $387,000 ILLEGAL SLUSH FUND?

Ever work in a political campaign? An early one for me was in Bobby Kennedy's U.S. senate campaign in New York. I was the 16 year old elevator operator at his Manhattan headquarters. Sometimes after work someone upstairs would send out for pizzas for the volunteers. Of course I don't eat pizza anymore but back then... Oh, I loved the goodies the petty cash draw would buy. Well, mostly. Once they sent me out with some money from that draw to buy a bunch of magic markers and oaktag, not nearly as exciting as the pizzas.

Joe Lieberman is nothing like Bobby Kennedy, of course, but recently another way they're not alike has come to everyone's attention: the way Lieberman has been using petty cash. Forget the pizzas and magic markers and oaktag. $387,000 in "petty cash," judiciously spread out on the street is very much meant to buy something else entirely.

Holy Joe Lieberman has always been one of the most duplicitous politicians and dishonest hypocrites in the U.S. Senate. He's infamous as a dirty political player so no one should be surprised that he's been illegally using "petty cash" to buy votes. Jane caught this on Saturday (and again today) but she's too polite to suggest Lieberman  or someone in his campaign is as bad as the Bush-Rove political machine when it comes to electoral cheating.


What do crooked pols like Lieberman do with nearly $400,000 in "petty cash"? Right before voting day? One thing: bribes. That's it. Nothing else. In Lieberman's case, "community leaders," are paid for turning out their people. It's a crime. I wouldn't show my face either-- would you?


OH... AND A LITTLE AFTERTHOUGHT ON LIEBERHOUND AND ANOTHER 60'S PERSONALITY


If Lieberman is nothing like Bobby Kennedy, there is another 60's pol he was very much like: a true Joe Lieberman role model, Richard Nixon. Do you think I'm stretching a bit? I'm not, not even a teensy weensy bit. Remember when Chuck Hagel started publicly warning everyone that Bush's occupation of Iraq was getting to look a lot like Viet Nam? And remember how Bush sent out his attack Lieberhound to savage Hagel? Today David Sirota and Matt Stoller called my attention to some fascinating Nixon/Lieberman parallels: "The Language of Deception:"

Consider a November 3, 1969, President Richard Nixon gave a speech pretending he wanted to soon end the Vietnam War. His speech came a full 3 years and 9,000 American casualties before he was forced against his will by public pressure to end the war. His words are almost exactly the same as Senator Joe Lieberman – another politician who now publicly pretends to want to "end the war," all while working against all efforts to end the war.

"I want peace as much as you do." – Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
 
"No one wants to end the war in Iraq more than I do." – Joe Lieberman, 10/18/06
 
"Many others-- I among them-- have been strongly critical of the way the war has been conducted." – Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
"I want to end the war." – Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
 
"I have been very critical of a lot of the mistakes the Bush administration has made in Iraq." – Joe Lieberman, 10/18/06
 
"Many believe that President Johnson's decision to send American combat forces to South Vietnam was wrong. But the question facing us today is: Now that we are in the war, what is the best way to end it?" – Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
 
"The question is what do we do now. We are there, no matter what you think of how we got there." – Joe Lieberman, 10/8/06
 
"I want to end the war." – Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
 
"I want to help end the war in Iraq." – Joe Lieberman, 8/11/06
 
"It is a plan that will end the war and serve the cause of peace." – Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
 
"I recently, again, issued a 10 point plan to get the job done [in Iraq]." – Joe Lieberman, 10/18/06
 
"A fixed timetable for our withdrawal would completely remove any incentive for the enemy to negotiate an agreement. They would simply wait until our forces had withdrawn and then move in." – Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
 
"If you tell your enemy when you're going to leave, they'll wait and create disaster." – Joe Lieberman, 7/6/06
 
"I would be untrue to my oath of office if I allowed the [war] policy of this nation to be dictated by the minority who hold that [anti-war] point of view and who try to impose it on the nation." – Richard Nixon, 1969
 
"There is a real but unfortunately too often overlooked or concealed bipartisan American consensus in favor of this new war." – Joe Lieberman, 4/26/04
 
"I understand why they are concerned, about this war. I respect your idealism. I share your concern for peace." – Richard Nixon, 1969
 
"I already know that some of you feel passionately against my position on Iraq. I respect your views." – Joe Lieberman, 8/7/06