It is an odd contrast. Last night, I watched a movie, Invictus, that was about reconciliation, trust, hope, forgiveness and bringing out the best in people after a prolonged battle for control of a country. Today, I saw a man who has come to personify the opposite of all of those values. Joe Lieberman has come to personify divisiveness, distrust, despair and vindictiveness.
Are there any lengths to which Joe Lieberman will not go in order to punish the Democratic Party for denying him the nomination for senate three years ago? First, he stabs his party in the back and endorses John McCain for President. Then, after President Obama graciously forgives him and asks that he be accepted into the Democratic caucus and given a Chairmanship, he proceeds to fight tooth and nail against the Democratic agenda.
Now, not only is he fighting the Democratic Party on Health Care Reform, he is willing to make forty million Americans pay the price for his revenge. He is going about it in such a transparent way that it is impossible to come to any other conclusion than that he is doing this out of revenge. What do I mean?
Three years ago, Senator Lieberman came out in favor of expanding Medicare to those under 65. As AP reports here à http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091215/ap_on_bi_ge/us_lieberman_medicare_6 he said at the time regarding his proposals for Health Care Reform:
""My proposals were to basically expand the existing successful public health insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid" When it came to Medicare I was very focused on a group post 50, maybe more like post 55. People who have retired early, or unfortunately have been laid off early, who lose their health insurance and they're too young to qualify for Medicare and what I was proposing was that they have an option to buy into Medicare early and again on the premise that that would be less expensive than the enormous cost."
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