McSmears Escalate

13 August 2008 |permalink | email article

JOE Lieberman is the body man for John McCain, just as McCain was for Bob Dole, the hapless 1996 Republican presidential candidate crushed by Bill Clinton.

McCain, as if peeking at Mark Penn’s diabolical playbook in search of sneaky ways to defeat Barack Obama, regurgitated one of his campaign’s new themes, that he always puts the country first.

Lieberman, who introduced McCain at rally in York, Pa., was far more explicit.

The Connecticut Independent was the Democratic vice president nominee in 2000, and without mentioning Obama by name, got very emotional as his voice soared.

Lieberman called the choice “between one candidate, John McCain, who has always put the country first, worked across party lines to get things done, and one candidate who has not”.

In reference to real bipartisanship, the renegade Democrat might be aware, for starters, of a June 28, 2007 press release headline from Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana: ‘Obama, Lugar Secure Funding for Implementation of Nonproliferation Law.’

By the way, start paying very close attention to Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s foreign policy adviser who yesterday accused Obama of a “policy of delusion” toward terrorism. 

Scheunemann, a prominent advocate of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in the lead-up to the war, has been a registered lobbyist for several foreign countries, including Georgia. McCain’s message to Georgian President Saakashvili, “Today we are all Georgians,” smacks of the adviser.

Andrew Sullivan Strikes Back

“And so the evolution from hawkish Democrat to Republican attack-dog continues. What Lieberman is doing is what a vice presidential candidate tends to do: savage the opponent. Or, more accurately, what Rove vice-presidential candidates have been trained to do: savage the opponent as a traitor. It’s funny but I don’t recall him ever being so aggressive when he was Gore’s running mate.”

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