The Progressive Professor

Former Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman passed away yesterday at the age of 82, tragically as the result of complications from a fall.

This sad news reminds us of his significant role in American history and politics.

A comparatively conservative Senator for a Democrat, specifically on foreign policy, while quite liberal on most matters of domestic policy, Lieberman became the first Jewish candidate on a national Presidential ticket as the Vice Presidential nominee for Al Gore in the Presidential Election of 2000.

Coming to the Senate after defeating liberal Republican Senator Lowell Weicker in 1988, and backed by conservative advocate William F. Buckley, Jr, who called Lieberman his “favorite Democrat”, he lost the Democratic nomination for his seat in 2006, but ran as an Independent and defeated his Democratic and Republican opponents, serving his fourth and last term until 2012, when he retired.

Lieberman was closely associated with Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham as “hawks” on the Iraq War, and McCain considered him for the Vice Presidency in 2008, before choosing the disastrous Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Lieberman was always highly controversial, but also remembered as very principled and a major factor in American politics for more than a generation.

For a person such as this author who sees himself as “progressive”, Lieberman often irritated with his overly hawkish views on foreign policy, and he did not show adequate support for either Barack Obama or Joe Biden, including engaging in the NO LABELS movement, which seems, fortunately, to be going nowhere in the upcoming presidential election.