Joe Lieberman Smells Blood

When Lieberman finally recognized Connecticut's electoral calculus and retired last year, I was tempted to throw away my collection of Lieberman art. But something told me not to, that Lieberman still wasn't through polluting America's public spaces. And, sure enough, the sleazy K Street lobbyist for Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman, who has always put the demands of Israel's Likud extremists ahead of America's own interests, and is now part of the right-wing think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, was spouting his unique, dark vision of humanity for Fox viewers yesterday.

Fox News Sunday trotted Lieberman out to attack President Obama for their appreciative audience. He said he was "shocked and disappointed" the president was going to Congress for approval for military action against Syria. Lieberman has long gone the way of authoritarianism and spent his last decades of public service as an anti-democracy zealot.

“Notwithstanding what I said a few moments ago about how shocked and disappointed I was by the president's decision yesterday to go to Congress for authorization-- because I think he has the authority now to do that and that's exactly what the commander in chief is supposed to do-- the worst of all ends to this whole saga would be for Congress not to give the president authority to act. It would be catastrophic.

He is threatening to publicly lobby his former colleagues-- which is illegal for another year-- and he seems to cross in and out of consciousness that he is no longer a Member of Congress himself. "I appeal," he babbled, "to my fellow Members of Congress to give the president the authority that he's asked for now." He feels sure he can help deliver his fellow Stooges, McCain and Graham.

Lieberman was one of the 5 dozen right-wing self-described "foreign policy experts" who signed a letter to President Obama last week demanding he bomb he hell out of Syria immediately. Lieberman associated himself with warmongers and, in some cases war criminals, who are never right about anything, from Karl Rove, Elliott Abrams, Bill Kristol, Randy Scheunemann, Norm Coleman, Doug Feith and to outright clowns like Paul Bremer, Tim Pawlenty, Jamie Kirchick and... Max Boot! Bibi Netanyahu himself couldn't have done a better job:

Moreover, the United States and other willing nations should consider direct military strikes against the pillars of the Assad regime. The objectives should be not only to ensure that Assad’s chemical weapons no longer threaten America, our allies in the region or the Syrian people, but also to deter or destroy the Assad regime’s airpower and other conventional military means of committing atrocities against civilian non-combatants. At the same time, the United States should accelerate efforts to vet, train, and arm moderate elements of Syria’s armed opposition, with the goal of empowering them to prevail against both the Assad regime and the growing presence of Al Qaeda-affiliated and other extremist rebel factions in the country.

Left unanswered, the Assad regime’s mounting attacks with chemical weapons will show the world that America’s red lines are only empty threats. It is a dangerous and destabilizing message that will surely come to haunt us-- one that will certainly embolden Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons capability despite your repeated warnings that doing so is unacceptable. It is therefore time for the United States to take meaningful and decisive actions to stem the Assad regime’s relentless aggression, and help shape and influence the foundations for the post-Assad Syria that you have said is inevitable.