Lieberman's Right-Wing Scaife Money
by Taylor Marsh (Reprinted from HuffingtonPost.com)

Richard Mellon Scaife, the man who paid nearly $2 million "to unearth damaging information about Pres Clinton," is now contributing to the Lieberman campaign.

Do you remember this guy?

How could anyone forget him? He's known as the "Funding Father of the Right." Richard Mellon Scaife was behind the failed hit job on President Bill Clinton, though he did get an impeachment vote for his money and for history.

Well now Joe Lieberman is taking money from the VRWC kingpin. I kid you not. Is he that desperate, or that duplicitous, or both?

This is the type of person who is funding Lieberman's campaign:

Scaife did get involved in numerous anti-Clinton activities. He gave $2.3 million to the American Spectator magazine to dig up dirt on Clinton and supported other conservative groups that harassed the president and his administration. The White House and its allies responded by fingering Scaife as the central figure in "a vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president," as Hillary Rodham Clinton described it. James Carville, Clinton's former campaign aide and rabid defender, called Scaife "the archconservative godfather in [a] heavily funded war against the president...."

[October 29, 2006] Full Story

Why Lamont Helps Dems, and Lieberman Is a Clear & Present Danger to Dems
by David Sirota. (Reprinted from CommonDreams.org)

Commentator David Sirota, writing the day after Lamont's primary victory, details how Lieberman has abandoned the Democratic Party. (Sirota now works for the Lamont campaign.)

For months, Washington pundits, operatives and lobbyists have been issuing apocalyptic prophecies claiming that if Ned Lamont won the Connecticut Democratic primary, the Democratic Party will be severely weakened. But in very specific ways, it is clear this morning that the exact opposite is happening: that Lamont's win has strengthened the Democratic Party, and Joe Lieberman's selfish decision to ignore the democratic primary process and run as an candidate of one will weaken the Democratic Party. Here's what I mean.

Lamont's win will strengthen Democratic unity: In 2002, Republicans ran Rep. Pat Toomey against Sen. Arlen Specter. Though Toomey lost, GOP strategists knew the race was no waste - it reinforced to other GOP officeholders that if they veer from the conservative line, they could face a primary challenge. That has helped the GOP build and maintain unity, and that's the very same thing that will happen now that Lamont has won the Connecticut primary. As Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) admitted, Democrats everywhere now have a very clear example of how, aiding and abetting the right-wing agenda of George W. Bush could land them with a challenge from their own voters at home. Lamont's victory mean that there will be more Democratic unity on the critical economic and foreign policy votes in which so many Democratic lawmakers previously peeled off (the energy bill, free trade deals, Iraq, the bankruptcy bill, estate tax, etc.), supported the GOP and undermined the Democratic Party's effort to have a real message.
[August 9, 2006] Full Story

Lieberman's Iraq Stance Brings Widening Split With His Party
by Raymond Hernandez and William Yardley. (Reprinted from the NY Times)

The Democratic pary's disenchantment with Lieberman didn't happen overnight, as this December 2005 NY Times article shows.

Five years after running as the vice-presidential nominee on the Democratic ticket and a year after his own presidential bid, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut has become an increasingly unwelcome figure within his party, with some Democrats seeing him more as a wayward son than a favorite son.

In the last few days, the senator has riled Democratic activists and politicians here and in his home state with his vigorous defense of President Bush's handling of the Iraq war at a time some Democrats are pressuring the administration to begin a withdrawal.

Mr. Lieberman particularly infuriated his colleagues when he pointed out at a conference here that President Bush would be commander in chief for three more years and said that "it's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that."

"We undermine the president's credibility at our nation's peril," Mr. Lieberman said.
[December 10, 2005] Full Story