New ad running today.

Yet another example of how Sen. Lieberman treats his friends - friends who showed the utmost loyalty to him:

In NH yesterday, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) tried to put some distance between himself and fellow CT Sen. Joe Lieberman. Dodd told a group of NH Dems a story of how he was trying to reach Lieberman by cell phone during the week before the primary and he never returned his calls. Dodd said the he was trying to reach Lieberman to prep him for the fact he wouldn't support an indie bid. Dodd also said Lieberman never told him anything about the indie plans. (Hotline sources).

"Civility."

("Complete Head Case" Edition.)

• Sen. Lieberman doesn't want to talk about Iraq. Probably because he'd end up sounding a lot like Chris Shays, who has endorsed him mainly based on this "single issue." David Broder, in a somewhat blistering column out Sunday, talks about Chris Shays, but may as well be describing The Lieberman Party's platform on Iraq:
  

  The headline Thursday morning from Iraq read: "Nearly 100 Killed in Baghdad During 24 Brutal Hours." That's what faced embattled Republican Rep. Chris Shays of Connecticut -- along with a plate of lukewarm scrambled eggs and a tableful of reporters at a press breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor....
  
  By the end of an hour, it was clear to everyone that the war has reduced this 60-year-old, nine-term veteran of the House to a complete head case -- consumed by the convoluted efforts to square the circle of his own conflicting impulses.



• Sen. Lieberman doesn't want to talk about Iraq, reports the Courant, but he does want to reinforce the Bush administration's politics of fear:
  

  Lieberman faulted the Bush administration for alienating potential allies in the war on terror, though he gave no examples of an administration miscue. He never mentioned the war in Iraq, a topic he intends to address with another policy speech....
  
  While criticizing Bush, he effectively buttressed comments the president made Friday that the world remains a dangerous place.



• Sen. Lieberman doesn't want to talk about Iraq, reports the Times, but he does want to use straw men to paint political debate as weakening the country:
  

  Under attack for his support of the war in Iraq, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman gave a 25-minute national security speech Friday without ever mentioning that conflict, instead arguing that the broad threat of international terrorism demands a continued aggressive stance. He said Osama bin Laden was “free and fomenting hatred against the United States.”...
  
  “It is wrong for some on the right to imply that some Democrats don’t care if the terrorists succeed, or that debating the merits of the president’s policies on the war on terrorism emboldens our enemies,” Mr. Lieberman said.
  
  That kind of attack on people’s motives “divides and weakens us as a nation,” he said.



• Sen. Lieberman doesn't want to talk about Iraq, reports the Advocate, but he does want to "echo President Bush's statements" on the war on terror (which apparently, according to the Senator, now has nothing to do with Iraq):
  

  His remarks echoed President Bush's statements earlier this week on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Lieberman's campaign called the speech a report on the war on terrorism and Islamic extremism.
  
  Conspicuously absent from his 25-minute speech was any mention of the Iraq war, which the senator's critics, including many of his Democratic peers, argue has distracted from protecting the home front.

From the Fairfield University Mirror (registration required) comes Sen. Lieberman's newest excuse for not talking about or voting on Iraq - it's just too complicated:

Lieberman did not mention Iraq in his speech, which lasted approximately 20 minutes. In response to a question posed by Fairfield politics professor John Orman, who briefly challenged Lieberman in the Democratic primary last spring, Lieberman said he wouldn't be doing justice to the fight against Al Qaeda or to the war in Iraq if he discussed both in the same speech.

Late Update: Mike from the comments:

So he's saying the invasion of Iraq wasn't part of the war on terror?

In a 2,600+ word speech on "national security" this morning, Sen. Lieberman did not mention the word "Iraq" once, according to his prepared remarks.

So much for Iraq being a central part of the "war on terror." It didn't even merit a single mention in a major address on the topic.

Meanwhile, Ned Lamont held a press conference in Hartford today with Mayor DeStefano and State House Maj. Leader Chris Donovan, calling Sen. Lieberman out on his missed votes on homeland security funding:

Lamont on Friday also chastised Lieberman for missing what he said were key Senate votes on homeland security, a theme he has echoed throughout the week. He said Connecticut gets less homeland security funding than its neighbors.

"We need people down there in Washington D.C. who are going to be fighting for the state of Connecticut, fighting for our rightful share," he said. "You'd hope that the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee would be able to do more for us."

Sen. Lieberman's car parked at Fairfield University this morning:

"Non-Combatant" Edition:

• Joe Courtney sounds happy that he doesn't have to defend Joe Lieberman on Iraq:
  

  "It was exactly a year ago that as a candidate I spoke out and called for Donald Rumsfeld to resign, and since then six generals that served under him joined in the calls for his removal, citing professional military reasons why his leadership had failed," Courtney said.
  
  "The war continues to go in the opposite direction that he and Bush had been confidently predicting, and we have a congressman who has been silent, by and large."



• Diane Farrell sounds happy that she doesn't have to defend Joe Lieberman on Iraq:
  

  "Chris [Shays] is not a military expert. He has absolutely no field experience. He has no training in this area. I understand he claims to be the expert because of his subcommittee, but that doesn't make him a general," she said.



• Chris Murphy, who will give the Democratic response to Bush's radio address this weekend, sounds happy that he doesn't have to defend Joe Lieberman on health care:
  

  Murphy told seniors the election is "about putting us - not corporations - first again." A New Britain native, Murphy said middle class jobs are not here any more "because chief executives and boards of directors decided they could make a quicker buck moving jobs overseas."

  
  And a couple of weeks ago, he too sounded happy that he didn't have to defend Joe Lieberman on Iraq:
  

  Herald: How do you differ from your opponent on the war in Iraq?
  
  Murphy: I cannot understand how she can continue to follow the President without question on this war. She supports him almost with no reservations. This President has gotten us in the middle of a civil war in Iraq. To provide no check on his policies is unconscionable.
  
  Herald: What's your position?
  
  Murphy: We can no longer have an open-ended commitment in Iraq. There may be a political solution to the violence there, but there is most likely not a military solution that the U.S. can be a part of. While we have been so focused on Iraq the real war on terror is happening in other places. It's happening in Afghanistan. It's happening in Pakistan. It's happening in other parts of the Middle East. Our myopia in Iraq has compromised our ability to meet those challenges elsewhere.



• Also, the New Haven Register leads with "The 'missing votes' issue won’t go away":
  

  Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Ned Lamont Thursday said his opponent, U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, skipped almost 400 votes since 1999, including 33 of the 63 total votes taken on the Iraq war.
  
  Earlier in the week, Lamont focused on a smaller slice of the senator’s Iraq war voting tallies, but expanded that Thursday to cover a seven-year period, the same amount of time Lieberman used almost two decades ago when he ran critical ads against then-incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Lowell Weicker.

In recent days, Lieberman's campaign has launched personal attacks against Ned's wife, Ned's personal finances, and Ned's experience as a volunteer teacher.

In the same time period, Ned Lamont has outlined his national security policy, put forward an educational proposal (pdf), and pointed out Sen. Lieberman's miserable voting record.

He hasn't gone after his opponent's personal finances, or his family, or his volunteer experience (wait, does he have any?).

Who's "negative"?

Bueller? Bueller?:

Lieberman skipping “votes on jobs that mattered to people”:
-SKIPPED VOTE to expend the Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation Act of 2002 (1/22/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to provide emergency disaster assistance to agricultural producers (1/22/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to provide minimum funding requirements for pension plans (1/22/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to repeal the authorities and requirements for a base closure round in 2005 (6/4/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to extended unemployment insurance (7/10/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to implement the United States-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (7/31/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to implement the United States-Chile Free Trade Agreement (7/31/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to restore funding for certain programs under the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (9/4/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to provide emergency relief for healthcare/schools/transportation needs & create 95,000 new jobs (10/14/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to pass the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (08/03/06)

Lieberman skipping “votes on defense that mattered to people”:
-SKIPPED VOTE to allow full access to Tricare for National Guard and Reserve Personnel and their families (3/25/03).
-SKIPPED VOTE to Support Department of Defense Operations in Iraq for Fiscal Year 2003 (4/3/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to pass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance bill (5/8/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to pass Military Construction and Department of Defense appropriations bills (7/11/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to provide National Guard and Reserve forces access to TRICARE (7/16/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to pass Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2007 (9/7/06)

Lieberman skipping “votes making the tax code fairer [that] could have protected middle-class taxpayers”:
-SKIPPED VOTE to pass the Armed Forces Tax Fairness Act of 2003 (3/27/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to accelerate the child tax credit (7/9/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to fund homeland security by reducing the Bush tax cuts for those making $1 million or more (7/24/03)

Lieberman skipping “votes that could have really helped clean up our environment”:
-SKIPPED VOTE to allow the suspension of the renewable fuel program (6/3/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to allow states to participate in the renewable fuel program (6/3/03).
-SKIPPED VOTE to provide for equal liability treatment of vehicle fuels and fuel additives (6/5/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to eliminate requirements for ocean oil drilling exploration (6/12/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to improve the system for enhancing automobile fuel efficiency (7/29/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to impose strengthen automobile fuel economy and reduce vehicle emissions (7/29/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to pass the Energy Policy Act of 2003 (7/31/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to change requirements of hazardous fuels reduction projects (10/30/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to ensure protection of old-growth forests (10/30/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to pass the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 (10/30/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to improve the operation of energy markets (11/05/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to prohibit energy market manipulation (11/05/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to restrict the use of funds for certain conservation programs (11/06/03)
-SKIPPED VOTE to pass the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006 (08/01/06)

Finally free from his electronic ankle bracelet, John Rowland has a new website and consulting business. Wonder if he'll be doing any work for "Team Connecticut"?

Helen Ubiñas has more. (Hat tip CLP).

• Reviews of Ned Lamont's national security address yesterday are in. The NY Times links to the full speech from their website, and writes:
  

  Delivering his first major speech since defeating Senator Joseph I. Lieberman in the Democratic primary last month, Mr. Lamont gave a broad outline of his foreign policy, suggesting that the United States should negotiate with Iran and Syria while continuing to support Israel.
  
  Mr. Lamont also reiterated his call for a timeline for withdrawing troops from Iraq, saying that the war had proved to be “dangerously wrong.”
  
  “I supported our invasion of Afghanistan — that’s where Al Qaeda was, that’s where terror was breeding,” Mr. Lamont said. “Each day Afghanistan falls further and further towards chaos.”...
  
  The speech is another step in a new offensive for Mr. Lamont, who is trying to assert himself on a variety of issues, including military force and troop withdrawal. His advisers say they are also trying to force Mr. Lieberman, who is now running in the general election on his own party line, to defend his support of the war.



• The Courant notes Ned's "surprising" references to Republican Presidents in the speech (shouldn't be "surprising," reallly, since he has advocated a return to our post-war common-sense, bipartisan foreign policy this entire campaign):
  

  Lamont, who defeated Lieberman in a Democratic primary as the champion of anti-war liberals, placed his world view in surprising company, praising Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush....
  
  Reagan may be anathema to liberal Democrats, but Lamont said the GOP icon toppled the Berlin Wall by following a U.S. tradition of bipartisan foreign policy and by marshaling world opinion.



• A letter in the East Hartford Gazette asks why the Senator gets to work part-time:
  

  Recently, Sen. Joe Lieberman failed to vote for or against a budget that included $50 billion for 6 months of action in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lieberman failed to vote for or against requiring the administration to report to congress every 3 months on whether Iraq is in a civil war.
  
  Lieberman failed to vote for or against adding $200 million to hunt down terrorist leaders. Lieberman failed to vote for or against adding $20 million for a public relations contract to generate positive news coverage about Iraq.
  
  Why is Lieberman not voting on these bills? Could it be that he is paralyzed by the upcoming election and is now not even willing to vote his convictions? What kind of message does this send to the citizens of Connecticut?...
  
  Donald M. Currey
  East Hartford



• And, finally, Dan Gerstein, who we can always count on to address the important issues of the day, attacks Ned Lamont for being a volunteer teacher:
  

  "Ned Lamont has loudly and widely trumpeted his credentials as an educator and in doing so has unequivocally given people the impression that he is currently a teacher in the Bridgeport public schools. Since Mr. Lamont is touting this credential, there are legitimate questions," Gerstein said.
  
  "He has distorted Lieberman's record and he has a habit of mischaracterizing his own positions on Iraq. If he is not teaching, why does he continue to mislead the voters about his role in the Bridgeport public schools?" Gerstein said.

  
  What is Sen. Lieberman's volunteer teaching experience, again? Update: Sirota has more:
  

  I’ve worked on a number of political campaigns, and I must say - this is the first I’ve seen a career politician attack his opponent for actually volunteering time at an inner-city school as a way to give back to the community. I mean, really - I’ve never seen anything like it. Worse, to actually come out and just lie about it and say that the factually provable reality isn’t true…there really are no words. It makes you wonder how Lieberman and Gerstein get up in the morning, look in the mirror and don’t feel ashamed of themselves.

"I support Joe Lieberman because he has consistently said we are going to 'stay the course.'"

- Sgt. James Liska, speaking at a press conference in support of Sen. Lieberman today.

Tammy Sun says it's a sunrise, not a sunset:

Lieberman spokesmannequin Tammy Sun just issued a statement to CNN regarding Carter's statements:

"[I]t is entirely false to suggest that Joe Lieberman in any way equated dissent about the war with supporting terrorists."

Joe Lieberman:

"If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England. It will strengthen them and they will strike again."

Not to mention - Lieberman:

It’s time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be the commander in chief for three more critical years and that in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation’s peril.

He's been strongly in favor of the Iraqi war from the very beginning. He was one of the originators of the public statements that misled the American people into believing that the Iraqi war was justified. He's been an undeviating supporter of the war from the very beginning and still is. He's joined in with the Republican spokespersons by saying that Democrats who disagree are really supporting terrorism. So for all these reasons I've lost my confidence in Joe Lieberman and don't want to see him re-elected.

- Former Pres. Carter on Larry King tonight.

Ned emphasized the importance of "strength and judgement" and recalled the history of America successfully winning the Cold War during a wide-ranging national security address at Yale Law School this afternoon. Tim has video and early reports from the press over at the official blog.

"No-Show Joe" Edition:

• Sen. Lieberman's missed votes on Iraq are the news of the morning. And both he and his campaign have no response, other than to criticize Ned Lamont for being "critical" and dismiss any missed Senate votes that aren't 50-50 as "symbolic" and "procedural." Lightman and Pazniokas write up the story for the Courant, choosing to lead with the "Sleeping Bear" angle (it is too great to pass up, isn't it?):
  
  

  Joseph I. Lieberman aggressively used an opponent's record of missed votes to help him win his first Senate race in 1988. Now, Lieberman is the incumbent under attack for absenteeism....
  
  Talking to reporters from Washington, Lieberman said he would have been present if his vote had the potential to tip the balance. His first reaction to the question of missed votes was to tear into Lamont.
  
  "The first thing to say is Ned Lamont is running one of the most negative campaigns I can remember. He constantly criticizes, criticizes, criticizes," Lieberman said.



• The Stamford Advocate gets Tammy Sun on the record:
  

  Lieberman campaign spokeswoman Tammy Sun yesterday said it was a further effort by Lamont to distort Lieberman's record.
  
  "(He) can't help doing anything but attack Joe Lieberman," she said of Lamont in an e-mailed response, adding that Lieberman has a 94 percent voting record since taking office in 1989....
  
  The Senate's Web site confirms the data provided by Lamont, and Sun did not dispute the absences. Sun last week said Lieberman missed Thursday's "typical, party-line procedural votes" because he was accepting an award for his work on youth issues from the Kennedy Center.



• The New Haven Register notes Tammy Sun's claim that any Senate vote that is not 50-50 is really just "symbolic":
  

  Lieberman’s spokeswoman, Tammy Sun, has referred to the tally as "procedural" and Lamont was asked if, in fact, the vote was just symbolic, since Lieberman’s vote would not have made a difference.

  
  And as a reminder of what this is all about, they quote reservist John Kelley on Sen. Lieberman's complete disconnect with the reality on the ground in Iraq:
  

  Lamont was introduced by John Kelley, 45, of New Haven, a local attorney who spent five months in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 as a major in the Army Reserves, advising judges on cases against Saddam Hussein and his government.
  
  Kelley said while he worked in the presidential palace in Baghdad, they always had a television tuned to the Fox News network and, "I would frequently see Sen. Lieberman defending the policies in Iraq and I was wondering what country was this man talking about?"
  
  "It’s certainly not the Iraq that I saw out the window of the presidential palace," Kelley said. "It’s certainly not the Iraq that I walked out of my trailer every day and looked at," he said.



• The Lamont campaign fact sheet on Sen. Lieberman's missed "procedural votes" is available here.


• The AP gets a preview of Ned Lamont's national security speech today:
  

  In remarks prepared for a speech Wednesday at Yale Law School, Lamont said that President Bush and those who support him have led America in a dangerous new direction since the Sept. 11 attacks and argued that the Iraq war has diverted national security resources from the war on terror.
  
  "We have sacrificed our daughters and sons and our treasure in a war we didn't have to fight," Lamont said. "We have ignored the real threats and security needs in the war we should be fighting against terrorists."

  
  More on this later today.

Gerstein's ex-boss Tom Suozzi didn't even break the Mendoza line in the NY-GOV primary. (Sen. Clinton won huge, too).

Sen. Chafee (R-RI) seems to have fended off his primary challenge. He should expect a cross-endorsement from the Connecticut for Lieberman party any day now. To do otherwise would mean being a mindless "partisan polarizer." Right?

OK, forget Sen. Lieberman's missed votes, cheerleading for Bush ("bottom line," Joe thought he had it right), demonizing of Democrats as Al-Qaeda enablers, acceptance of financial support from architects of Bush's war (Bill Kristol) and managers of Bush's post-war policy (Dan Senor), and the all-around and complete lack of any serious calls for accountability from this administration.

Do what Sen. Lieberman wants you to do, think about "good stuff," and forget his failures for the moment.

Sen. Lieberman now says "as a policy maker and elected leader, I am focused on the fact that al-Qaida is there now."

As a policy maker and elected leader, what does he plan to do about this report from the Marines? Anything?

The political and security situation in western Iraq is grim and will continue to deteriorate unless the region receives a major infusion of aid and a division is sent to reinforce the American troops operating there, according to the senior Marine intelligence officer in Iraq.

The assessment, prepared last month by Col. Peter Devlin at the Marine headquarters in Anbar Province, has been sent to senior military officials in Iraq and at the Pentagon....

Without the deployment of an additional division, “there is nothing MNF-W can do to influence the motivation of the Sunni to wage an insurgency,” the report states, according to a military officer familiar with it. MNF-W stands for Multinational Force-West, the formal name of the Marine command. A division numbers about 16,000 troops. The limited number of troops, however, is just one problem in countering the insurgency there, the report says. The assessment describes Anbar as a region marked by violence and criminality. Except for a few relatively bright spots, like the towns of Falluja and Qaim, the region generally lacks functional governments and a respect for the rule of law.

So should we send in another division? The Marines are saying we can't stay the course.

Meanwhile, Michael Ware reports that privately, military commanders are saying we don't just need another division, but three times as many troops in order to maintain order in Western Iraq:

MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, good morning.

In Ramadi, in western Al Anbar province, we see what can only be described as a black hole in President Bush's global war on terror. As the president is going through his series of speeches to reassure the American people and to inform them about the success and the progress of his war on terror, there in Al Anbar we saw that al Qaeda at its very heart has been found, identified, yet is not being struck at....

WARE: ...Privately, off line, what commanders, again, from Baghdad to Ramadi, will tell you is that they need at least three times as many troops as they currently have there now, be that Iraqi and American or, even better, just three times as many as American troops. I mean, there's an area there north of the Euphrates River that is used by al Qaeda's top leadership that Osama bin Laden himself points to. It's the size of New Hampshire.

This is the same Michael Ware, former Baghdad Bureau Chief for Time Magazine, who said of Sen. Lieberman's policy last December that:

"I and some other journalists had lunch with Senator Joe Lieberman the other day and we listened to him talking about Iraq. Either Senator Lieberman is so divorced from reality that he's completely lost the plot or he knows he's spinning a line. Because one of my colleagues turned to me in the middle of this lunch and said he's not talking about any country I've ever been to and yet he was talking about Iraq, the very country where we were sitting."

So what is Sen. Lieberman's plan? Regardless of whatever rhetoric Dan Gerstein and Sen. Lieberman come up with for his speech planned for this week, it's obvious that not much has changed since then.

Plot still lost. Falied policies still being supported.

From gchaucer2:

I hope anyone who had planned on voting for Lieberman decides that their vote is not crucial, that voting for a Senator is only procedural, and stays home.

• In addition to skipping out on crucial Iraq votes for years, Sen. Lieberman also had the audacity yesterday to dismiss the Senate Intelligence Committee's new report on Iraq intelligence failures as being a "historic" document, (before being "hustled away by aides," that is...):
  

  Lieberman, who is in the middle of a tough election fight with Democratic candidate Ned Lamont, said the report’s conclusion "will be part of the historic judgment on what happened before, but as a policy maker and elected leader, I am focused on the fact that al-Qaida is there now."
  
  When asked if the decision to go to war with Iraq had a bearing on members of al-Qaida now operating in that country, Lieberman said: "I’m not going to get into that today."...
  
  Lieberman made his remarks, before being hustled away by aides, after he spoke at a ceremony at the Old State House to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

  
  Does this sound like a "principled" politician? Or one truly interested in holding the Bush administration accountable?


• From the Stuff Everyone Already Knows But Dan Gerstein Still Denies Department: Joe has been raking in money from Republican D.C. lobbyists:
  

  Beaten in Primary, Lieberman Turns to Lobbyists for Help
  
  "Sen. Joe Lieberman (?-Conn.) increasingly has been relying on Washington, D.C., lobbyists — Republicans as well as Democrats — to help him hang on to his seat.
  
  "Though it won’t be known until mid-October how much money Lieberman has or will have raised from Republicans since his August primary loss, GOP lobbyists clearly are eager to help him.
  
  "Take, for example, an invitation to an upcoming Lieberman fundraiser circulated by Ruth Ravitz Smith, a GOP lobbyist at Brown Rudnick.
  
  "'I hope that you will join me in demonstrating your support for Senator Lieberman’s campaign for the US Senate,' Smith wrote in the e-mail. 'This will be the only major event for the Senator in Washington this fall. Please help spread the word to colleagues, clients and friends.'

  
  Dan Gerstein denied that his boss was receiving "significant" Republican funding just this past weekend:
  

  Gerstein also vowed to personally investigate the matter of Republican contributions to the Lieberman campaign, saying he didn't think the senator had "taken a significant amount of money from registered Republicans."



• I know I join with many in the CT blogosphere in sending my sincerest condolences to Colin McEnroe and his family. Tim says it best about Colin's recent intensely personal and deeply moving writing:
  

  He invited us inside his personal life, and passion in his voice and quality of his writing made it easy to accept the invitation.

In addition to skipping out on two critical votes on Iraq last week, Sen. Lieberman also missed six other senate votes for a total of eight missed votes in three days. Some were close, others not:

• On the Nomination of Kimberly Ann Moore, of Virginia, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Federal Circuit - Lieberman (D-CT), Not Voting


• On the Motion to Table (Motion to Table Kennedy Amdt. No. 4885) (To include information on civil war in Iraq in the quarterly reports on progress toward military and political stability in Iraq.) - Lieberman (D-CT), Not Voting


• On the Motion to Table (Motion to Table Mikulski Amdt. No. 4895 ) (To provide that none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to enter into or carry out a contract for the performance by a contractor of any base operation support service at Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital) - Lieberman (D-CT), Not Voting


• To enhance intelligence community efforts to bring Osama bin Laden and other key leaders of al Qaeda to the justice they deserve. - Lieberman (D-CT), Not Voting


• On the Motion to Table (Motion to Table Menendez Amdt. No. 4909 ) (To prohibit the use of funds for a public relations program designed to monitor news media in the United States and the Middle East and create a database of news stories to promote positive coverage of the war in Iraq.) - Lieberman (D-CT), Not Voting


• On the Motion to Table (Motion to Table Schumer Amdt. No. 4897) (To make available up to an additional $700,000,000 for Drug Interdiction and Counter-Drug Activities to combat the growth of poppies in Afghanistan, to eliminate the production and trade of opium, and heroin, and to prevent terrorists from using the proceeds for terrorist activities in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, and to designate the additional amount as emergency spending.) - Lieberman (D-CT), Not Voting


• To make available an additional $65,400,000 for additional appropriations for Aircraft Procurement, Air Force, for the procurement of Predators for Special Operations forces, and to designate the amount as an emergency requirement. - Lieberman (D-CT), Not Voting


• A bill making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007, and for other purposes. - Lieberman (D-CT), Not Voting

"Sleeping Bear," anyone?

Lieberman attacked Weicker [in 1988] for missing votes in the Senate; he aired a TV commercial of a sleeping bear, an effective personal shot that ushered in a new era of nasty political campaigning in Connecticut. Lieberman's point was that Weicker had become too cavalier about voting and doing his job after three terms in office.

And Sen. Lieberman's response?

“I plan to return to the Senate for votes when my presence is a deciding factor and important committee business in which my participation is crucial,” Lieberman wrote. “The task of representation is truly a two-way street.”

So unless the vote is 50-50, Sen. Lieberman says he doesn't have to show up.

But this is nothing new. Sen. Lieberman claims to want to hold Bush accountable on Iraq, but has also missed 11 crucial votes on Iraq in recent years:

LIEBERMAN SKIPPING KEY SENATE VOTES ON IRAQ; HAS MISSED AT LEAST 11 IRAQ VOTES SINCE 2003: On 9/6/06, Lieberman missed a critical close Senate vote on Iraq. Specifically, the vote was on legislation to require the Pentagon to provide more information to Congress and the public on the potential for civil war in Iraq. Lieberman missed this critical vote even though the Hartford Courant noted that Lieberman was in Washington that day. In fact, Lieberman attended the vote that immediately preceded this key Iraq vote. That was on a bill to prevent cluster bombing of civilian targets. Lieberman voted against that bill. Lieberman also missed another close Iraq vote the next day – this time on legislation to stop the Pentagon from trying to artificially influence the Iraqi news media in the wake of embarrassing scandals about U.S. government media tampering that have enflamed anti-American passions in Iraq. In all, Lieberman has missed at least 11 Iraq votes since the war started in 2003. [Sources: Senate Roll Call Vote #233, 9/6/06; Hartford Courant, 9/7/06; Senate Roll Call Vote #232, 9/6/07; Senate Roll Call Vote #236, 9/7/06]

LIEBERMAN ONLY SENATOR TO MISS TWO KEY IRAQ VOTES IN 2003: Lieberman was the only U.S. Senator to miss a close vote on a resolution to urge the president to better engage America’s international allies to help bear the military and financial cost of the war. He was also the only senator to miss a close vote on a bill that would have created a federal agency overseeing Iraq reconstruction money so as to prevent war profiteering. In both cases, the votes were very close, and the legislation in question was defeated. [Sources: Senate Roll Call Vote #391, 10/17/03; Senate Roll Call Vote #392, 10/17/03]

Lieberman defends earmarks, but former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich has a great post on why they need to be banned:

The stench is worse today than in 1994. The number of registered lobbyists in Washington has ballooned to the point there are over 60 of them for every single member of Congress. They spent $2.4 billion last year. What do you think the lobbyists bought with that money?

A lot of it was for earmarks, obviously -- specific morsels of bacon designed to pay off some big donors back home. Most folks back home don't see a penny of it. It goes into the pockets of conduits like Jack Abramoff. And taxpayers foot the bill for all the earmarks for every specially-favored interest all over the country. Ten years ago there were about 3,000 earmarks. Last year there were over 14,000, costing taxpayers over $47 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service.

To show voters they've at least done something, the House leadership is set to require by House rules that legislation containing earmarks list members of Congress who sponsored them. But that’s not reform. That’s advertising. There’s no mystery about who sponsors what earmark. Just look at whose district the earmarked money will go to.

The only meaningful reform is to ban all earmarks, period. They’re taxpayer ripoffs. They're legalized bribery. If this House won’t clean up its act, the public will clean up the House and throw the rascals out. If the Democrats don't stop this taxpayer carnage on their watch, the public will throw them out next time.

"America's Next Top Lamont" Edition:

• While Sen. Lieberman was one of only a few senators to miss close and important Senate votes holding the Bush administration accountable on Iraq last week (he dismissed it as "procedural"), other candidates around the country are stepping up and demanding accountability from incumbents in primaries around the country, many taking place tomorrow:


• The AP rounds up how Ned Lamont has inspired primary challengers nationwide, including Jennifer Lawless (D) in Rhode Island and others:
  

  Meanwhile, Democratic House challengers waging primary fights in Wisconsin and Massachusetts, like Lawless, have compared themselves with Lamont and made the war a core issue:
  
  - Wisconsin anti-war Democrat Chip DeNure is making his fight against five-term Rep. Ron Kind a referendum on the war.
  
  - In Massachusetts, anti-war Democrat Phil Dunkelbarger is invoking the Lieberman-Lamont fight against Rep. Stephen Lynch, who insists he is a loyal Democrat whose voting record is strongly anti-Bush.



• Ben Smith of the NY Daily News writes about how Iraq is playing in Brooklyn's contentious Democratic primary for U.S. Representative, and how Lamont's record-turnout victory in August might specifically affect turnout there tomorrow.


• The Joe Lieberman Weekly asks if Rep. Al Wynn (D-MD) might be Maryland's "own Joe Lieberman" (surprisingly, they conclude he won't). Donna Edwards (D) is running against him in a primary this Tuesday, and accountability on Iraq is a major issue in her campaign.


• The AP also runs a piece profiling the general anti-incumbent swell across the country:
  

  Nevertheless, four incumbents - including a governor and a senator - have lost primaries so far this year, providing some evidence that voters want fresh blood in positions of power. Neither political party may be immune.
  
  Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski, a Republican, was the most recent casualty of what may end up being an anti-incumbent wave of the 2006 elections. He finished last in a three-way GOP primary in August, getting just 19 percent of the vote.
  
  A fifth upset could occur Tuesday.
  
  Sen. Lincoln Chafee, a moderate Republican in Rhode Island, is facing a fierce primary against Stephen Laffey, the mayor of Cranston. Polls show a tight race.



• And Susan Page of USA Today compares RI-SEN to CT-SEN:
  

  A New England senator often at odds with his party faces a down-to-the-wire showdown in his state's primary.
  Last month, that description applied to Democrat Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who ended up losing to anti-war challenger Ned Lamont and is now running as an independent. On Tuesday, it depicts Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, the Senate's most liberal Republican. He is imperiled by a challenge from anti-tax conservative Steve Laffey.
  
  "It's a mirror image of what went on next door in Connecticut," says Bob Benenson, editor of the non-partisan CQpolitics.com.

  
  What might be most interesting here is the success that Laffey has had tying Chafee to Bush. (And if you thought the DSCC's performance during primaries has been questionable, the NRSC has run vicious ads against Laffey and said they will all but concede the race to Whitehouse if Sen. Chafee is defeated.)

"I shouldn't have to show up for a Senate vote unless my vote will break the tie... Even if I'm in D.C.... And the vote is about holding President Bush accountable on Iraq."

Sen. Lieberman and his surrogates have spent this entire camapaign - from February until today - defending the status quo of politics in Washington D.C. His campaign has called Ned Lamont "naive" for thinking that representing his constituents' views is actually important, no matter what the end result of any particular vote. He has defended earmarks and wasteful spending such as the "bridge to nowhere," as if the system wasn't broken. And after a primary campaign spent burnishing his Democratic credentials, he now routinely hammers home the evils of "partisan polarization," as if Democrats were just as responsible for the disastrous state of the country as Republicans - who represent well under 50% of the country yet control 100% of government power (and sometimes it feels like more).

More than merely expecting Senators to show up for votes, Connecticut voters expect much more than this type of do-nothing cynicism from their elected representatives.

On the democratic virtues of debate:

VP Cheney, today:

The vice president said U.S. allies in Afghanistan and Iraq "have doubts" America will finish the job there. "And those doubts are encouraged, obviously, when they see the kind of debate that we've had in the United States."

Sen. Lieberman, last Decemner:

"It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be the commander in chief for three more critical years and that in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril," Lieberman said.

On Democrats helping terrorists:

VP Cheney, today:

"Suggestions, for example, that we should withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq simply feed into that whole notion, validates the strategy of the terrorists."

Sen. Lieberman, last month:

"If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England. It will strengthen them and they will strike again."

You wouldn't necessarily know it by the national media's miniscule coverage in comparison to the Lieberman-Lamont race, but the Rhode Island Republican party is holding a primary of its own for Senate this coming Tuesday, with incumbent moderate Sen. Chafee (R) facing off against the hard-right Club-for-Growth-supported Steve Laffey (R). Sheldon Whitehouse (D) is the Democrat in the race, and is currently leading in the polls against both potential Republican candidates (although by a much larger margin against Laffey).

Who is Sen. Lieberman supporting in this contentious race right next door? Between gaining the outright endorsements of Susan Collins (R-ME) and Chris Shays (R-CT), as well as the unspoken endorsement of the bulk of the CT Republican party, his new political base seems very much to be New England Republicans. This opens up a bunch of fascinating questions, including:

• Would Sen. Lieberman encourage Sen. Chafee (R) to run in the general election even if he loses the primary? If not, why not?


• Would Sen. Lieberman support Sheldon Whitehouse (D) in a race vs. Sen. Chafee (R)? Wouldn't it just be "partisan nonsense" if he did?

In any case, this race deserves more attention than it's been getting, as Ruth Marcus points out in The Day (originally from the Washington Post):

Yet the analogy goes only so far. The Rhode Island race is more complex, certainly odder and potentially far more momentous.

For angry Democratic voters, a Lamont vote was all but risk-free. Rhode Island is Connecticut with consequences: A Laffey nomination in this heavily Democratic state could imperil GOP control of the Senate. A general election race between the Democratic nominee, former Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse, and a bruised Chafee promises to be close. But nearly the only one who thinks Laffey would beat Whitehouse is Laffey. “I'll crush him,” he asserts.