Give me your best guess...What does Al Gore think of Lieberman NOW?

[in_cog_ni_to]

I'm thinking he's probably asking himself..."What the hell was I thinking taking that RWer as my running mate?" He must CRINGE every time Lieberman opens his damn mouth.

What do you think Al is thinking of his ex VP running mate?

[tinrobot]

1. He thinks about the overseas military ballots...

The ones Lieberman said were OK in the 2000 recount.

[NYCGirl]

2. I think Al showed what he thought of Joementum when he endorsed Dean

in the primaries instead of his former running mate. (Lieberman sunk whatever friendship he might have had with Gore when he kept publicly telling Gore to "give up" when Gore was disputing the 2000 election results.)

[mzmolly]

4. Exactly. Lieberman was politically convenient after Clenis and his

OO - O.

[Dogmudgeon]

3. A chilly relationship

Every so often, this is reported by one political mini-pundit or another who wants to win a few Irony Points.

Al and Joe are not exactly enemies, but the relationship is chilly. Al has steadily moved to the left, while Joe has become as rightist as his constituents will let him become, and has been hiding his head in the sand.

Joe still occasionally makes trouble for Bush, but not over the holy war.

--p!

[Boo Boo]

5. Gore picked Lieberman as a counter move to Bush's deal with

Perle, et al with regards to letting Sharon "off his leash," etc.

I wasn't aware of this at first, and I really found the Lieberman pick mystifying. But, a couple of years after the election I read an article in which Perle let on as to how he and others had met with Bush---while Clinton was still President---and that Bush had agreed to all their policy demands. You can assume that one of those demands was Iraq. The other major agreement was to let Sharon off his leash; that is, to stand back and allow him to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, and support the proposition that Jerusalem should be part of Israel.

I think Gore picked Lieberman, who is a hard-liner with regards to Israeli politics, in an attempt to minimize the erosion of support that had been precipitated by Clinton's attempt to broker a peace agreement between Barak and Arafat, and Bush's subsequent exploitation of that opening. I say subsequent, but, if you remember, Bush was actually meeting with members of the Israeli delegation while the peace talks were underway.

Gore's choice of Lieberman makes perfect sense within this context.

[karlrschneider]

8. To put your somewhat convoluted but correct analysis into simpler terms:

To get the Jewish vote.

And if that sounds cynical, it was meant to be.

[Boo Boo]

9. Well, if I'd wanted to make a blanket statement...

I would have. He did it to get a particular segment of the vote. Not everybody who's Jewish supports Likud policy, or the settlements, etc. Bush was trying to split the Jewish vote, and Gore was trying to shore up his base by picking a Democrat with hard-liner credentials. You notice he didn't pick Rabbi Michael Lerner.

Anyway, politics is some cynical shit, that's for sure. For me, though, the interesting part is not Gore's attempt to "get the Jewish vote," but Bush's machinations. Similar to Kissinger sabotaging peace negotiations during the Vietnam War to help Nixon get elected, Bush was interfering with Clinton's peace talks, offering a "better deal" if he got elected.

That's pretty bold; bordering on illegal.

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. "What was I thinking?"

:spank:

[kansasblue]

7. Joe, Dick and George ran against Al in 2000.

That what Al thinks.