10/30/00 2:25 p.m.
The Fall of Lieberman
Say it ain’t so, Joe, say it ain’t so.

By Ben Domenech, NRO Contributing Editor---------------btdome@wm.edu

n Act II, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's Henry V, three nobles — the notorious Cambridge, Scroop, and Massam — are caught in an act of treachery, conspiring with France to murder young King Harry. It is a moment of enormous emotion, pain, and betrayal (Scroop had befriended Harry in his younger days) — as the king condemns the men who would sell England for a coin:

I will weep for thee;
For this revolt of thine, methinks,
Is like another fall of man.

For some reason, this is the first thing that jumps to mind after seeing Joe Lieberman's performance yesterday on the Sunday shows. With nine days to go in the election cycle, gone are the days of Lieberman's respectability, his intelligence and evenhandedness, or his moral passion. When the word "God" escapes his lips now, it's as much a catch phrase as "lockbox" or "risky scheme."

On the Sunday shows this week, the Connecticut senator leveled his sights on that most politically idiotic lines of attack — the State of Texas. Playing on partisan cliché and allegation, the last refuge of any scoundrel, Lieberman assaulted the state as being in "an awful state of affairs."

"I do think that Gov. Bush's record in Texas is the best indicator that the American people have about what kind of president he would be. And it's a terrible record," said Lieberman on CBS's Face The Nation.

"I don't think Gov. Bush is ready, based on his experience, his record, and particularly his proposals in this campaign, to be the kind of president that the American people need at this point in our history," accused Lieberman. "And what am I talking about, his proposals? I honestly believe…they'll take us back into deficits, raise interest rates, drop the stock market, raise unemployment," the veep candidate said on ABC's This Week.

He did the full circuit of shows, supporting at each turn the ridiculous phone banking going on in Michigan.

Paid for by the Democratic party, some of the messages were played back on the morning shows: in one call, "Charlotte Cherry of Houston" says, "Gov. Bush has accepted $1.3 million from corporate polluters and he's allowed them to keep polluting while my kids suffer." In another, "Ann Friday of Arlington, Texas," says her husband died after neglect in a nursing home four years ago, and that Bush has signed legislation that has weakened rather than strengthened nursing-home regulations. They've retired one call, which featured actor Ed Asner claiming "George W. Bush has a proposal that would undermine Social Security, even scuttling current benefits."

Bespectacled Bush media guru Karl Rove, who appeared on Fox News Sunday as well as CBS, said Gore's team is pulling for straws.

"That just is unbelievable that that campaign would allow those kinds of tactics to go forward and its principals would shake it off so lightly," said Rove.

On NBC's Meet the Press, Lieberman said that while he hadn't heard any of the calls himself, "they seem to me to be factual."

"Am I saying that George Bush killed people? Of course not," Lieberman said on Face the Nation. "But I'm saying there are consequences when you don't clean up the air, when you don't protect nursing-home patients, when you don't give health-care coverage to kids — which is the Texas record in all those records."

On the same show, Rove said Bush has signed stiffer nursing-home regulations into law during his three legislative sessions as Texas governor.

"Al Gore and Joe Lieberman should not be held responsible for the deaths of 2,500 people due to negligence and mistreatment in nursing homes regulated by federal law no more than Gov. Bush should be held responsible in this instance," said Rove.

On a slightly more honorable tack, Lieberman spent the morning pleading with Naderites to swallow their conscience and vote for Gore.

"I ask those who are thinking about voting for Ralph Nader to decide…to think about the issues that matter to you, like environmental protection and consumer protection and choice, a woman's right to choose," said Lieberman on This Week. "All of those may well be in jeopardy if George W. Bush is elected president."

Nader, who was also doing the morning rounds, said that he's not worried about siphoning votes from Gore and handing Bush the keys to the White House. On This Week, Nader was indifferent to the worries of Democrats, accusing both parties of "morphing" into corporate machines.

"If I was worried about whether Gore or Bush were going to be elected, would I be running for president to establish a progressive political-reform movement before and after November 7, which is what we're trying to do?" said Nader. "Do you think Gore is entitled to any votes? Do you think Bush is entitled? Am I entitled to any votes? We have to earn them. If Gore cannot beat the bumbling Texas governor with that horrific record, what good is he? What good is he? Good heavens. I mean, this should be a slam dunk."

Nader also responded to a NARAL ad which claims a vote for Nader risks the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

"Consider it. Justice Souter, Justice O'Connor, they could've overturned Roe v. Wade three times in the last ten years. They didn't do it. This is a scare tactic that's going on here," said Nader. "When George W. Bush was asked by Tim Russert, is he going to push to reverse Roe v. Wade, George Bush said, well, not unless a lot of people in this country change their mind. Even if Roe v. Wade is reversed that doesn't end it; it just reverts it back to the states…Remember your history. The Democrats made it possible for Scalia and Clarence Thomas to get through the Senate. Scalia was confirmed 98 to nothing, including Al Gore supporting him. Clarence Thomas was confirmed 52 to 48, with 11 Democratic senators putting him over the top in a Senate controlled by the Democratic majority and George Mitchell. They're responsible for the two worst justices."