Joe Lieberman just moved from his longtime home of New Haven to Stamford, Conn., where the local Democratic Party received unwelcome news. Holy Joe, you see, registered as a Democrat in his new home. He's also of late been referring to himself as a Democrat on Fox News, broadcast by the only network that still has his name in its Rolodex.
Holy Joe knows Congress is headed for a major swing next year, with Democrats in firmer control; likewise, he knows his "independent" status will make him even more irrelevant than he already is. He also feels more comfortable calling himself a Democrat now. Why not? Democrats won't end his favorite war or take legal action against his favorite modern president.
This, of course, is the same Lieberman who called supporters of the Democratic Party's 2006 Senate candidate, Ned Lamont, "jihadists." The same Lieberman who lost the primary, then invented his own party, underwritten by Republicans, to extend his career as a backstabber. The same Lieberman who enabled, and still supports, the worst foreign policy move in U.S. history. The same Lieberman who voted with Republicans to discard habeas corpus last week in one of the most disgraceful votes of his career.
On a similar note, Alan Greenspan just published memoirs under the suitably flatulent title The Age of Turbulence. Greenspan served as the auctioneer for the Bush economic policy, such as it is (tax cuts for the rich forever!), then bailed out when it went south. Greenspan the oracle, they called him. The most telling part of his memoirs is his devotion to Ayn Rand. He met Rand at age 25, when his wife was a member of "the Collective," a group of Ayn acolytes. (Greenspan is now married to Ayn-drea Mitchell, one of Bush's most reliable propagandists on network TV). Rand apparently had a number of lapdogs like Greenspan, sycophantic whelps who were little more than errand boys.
Given that experience, it's no surprise that he'd faithfully carry water for the Republicans during these great lost Bush years. Apparently, ringing in his ears and girding his loins were the words of Rand, who said she wanted "to show how desperately the world needs prime movers and how viciously it treats them" and "what happens to a world without them." This stuff doesn't even need deconstructing; it self-destructs upon contact with oxygen.
About Greenspan's memoirs: I adhere to the same policy I extend to the great wordsmith Orenthal James Simpson: don't buy books by crooks.
Speaking of whom, O.J. is, of course, back in the news (and in jail). He's also getting his magnum opus, If I Did It, published. Only the title has changed. It's now called Confessions of a Killer. Ninety percent of the royalties go to the Goldman family, who got the rights to it when Rupert Murdoch—owner of original publisher HarperCollins—pulled the plug on the book and Judith Regan's Fox News interview with Simpson last fall. Back then, Murdoch's right-wing Wurlitzer, Fox News, was cooing about the book, "If I Did It tells for the first time how he would have committed the murders if he were the one responsible for the crimes."
And Fred Goldman, father of one of the people O.J. allegedly filleted, said back then: "To imagine that a major network would put a murderer on TV… It's morally reprehensible to me…" (Fred obviously hasn't watched much Fox News). Fred's whistling a different tune now, though his allowing the publication is no less morally reprehensible. If you are so inclined (and it does make for some unexpectedly hilarious reading), here's a link from which you can download O.J.'s book for free:
http://www.watchtvsitcoms.com/Books/Fiction/Simpson.
Wish I could supply the same link for Greenspan's book.
What do you think?
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