Word: lieberman
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...weeks ago, Sen. Joseph Lieberman used the lives of thousands of Americans as a bargaining chip. Of course, he did not phrase it that way. Instead, he threatened to join a Republican filibuster of any health-care reform bill that includes the choice of a government-run insurance plan, or “public option.” This could very well destroy the reform process entirely. Given that even Sen. Olympia Snowe, the most liberal Senate Republican, will likely filibuster such a bill as well, such a vote would defeat the proposal in the Senate...
...understand that a world with universal health insurance would lead to fewer deaths, bankruptcies, and other misfortunes than the status quo, politicians like Grayson who emphasize this fact are dismissed by colleagues as crazy. Those who wish to entrench the current system—or ,perhaps worse, those like Lieberman who are willing to entrench it if to do so serves their own ends—are above reproach. Their opinions are “respected.” Their cravenness is not even a “punishable offense...
...problem arises when these analyses come to be appreciated for their own sake instead of as a means to a greater moral end. When Lieberman tells reporters that he opposes a public option because it will “end up increasing the national debt,” he not only spouts incorrect facts—the CBO estimates that a strong public option would save $150 billion over ten years—but he also misses the point. An increase in national debt does not in itself lead to negative moral consequences. If the goals of the spending?...
...problem with this kind of statistical fetishism is not the craven dishonesty. Lieberman does not care a whit about the national debt, of course, but political disingenuousness is too common to provoke real outrage. The danger lies in the systemic politeness that allows it to fester. Politicians who embrace this amoralism deserve rebuke from their leaders, not the nonchalance with which the Democratic leadership met Lieberman’s actions. And those like Grayson who challenge it deserve better than to hear their moral seriousness condemned as madness...
...religious beliefs. Still, media and government officials should refrain from jumping to conclusions concerning the role of Maj. Hassan’s religious background in this incident. Some rashly speculated that this was an organized terrorist attack, but such claims have since been disproved. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, for instance, suggested that Hassan had become extremist in his views. Whether this drove his actions, though, is for an investigation to prove...