If Sen. Lieberman were at all interested in accountability on Iraq, there is no reason his signature wouldn't also be on this letter sent from Sen. Clinton to the GAO this past week, calling for an investigation into what obviously went so terribly wrong with the Coalition Provisional Authority:

We write to you as members of Congress who are deeply concerned about our nation’s involvement in the war in Iraq. We believe that the seeds of today’s troubles were planted in 2002 and 2003 when the Administration failed to engage in planning for what could follow the conclusion of "major combat operations"; when it failed to send sufficient troops or properly equip them; when it failed to take the necessary steps to secure the peace; when it made the disastrous decision to disband the Iraqi Army; and when it apparently failed to ensure that we had the civilian personnel we needed on the ground in Iraq. On this last point, recent books and media accounts paint a highly disturbing picture about the hiring practices of the Department of Defense in staffing the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the personnel choices made, and the designation of a number of positions as political rather than civil service slots. We would like to request a Government Accountability Office study to review and assess hiring practices of the Department of Defense for the CPA....

We believe that decisions made in the first year of the occupation of Iraq are having a very direct impact on the situation that our troops confront in Iraq today. This matter demands attention and accountability. With 147,000 troops in Iraq after three years of fighting, we face rising sectarian violence, a continuing insurgency, and an Iraqi government that has not yet risen to the immense task before it. In order to move forward, we must understand how we arrived at this point, therefore, we are asking you to examine the hiring practices and actions of the Department of Defense in 2003 and 2004 in staffing the CPA during that critical period and the consequences of those decisions.

Signed:

Richard J. Durbin
Member, Committee on Appropriations

Harry Reid
Democratic Leader of the U.S. Senate

Carl Levin
Ranking Member, Committee on Armed Services

Joseph Biden
Ranking Member, Committee on Foreign Relations

Edward Kennedy
Member, Committee on Armed Services

Barbara Boxer
Member, Committee on Foreign Relations

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Member, Committee on Armed Services

Frank R. Lautenberg
Member, Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs

Conspicuously absent?

The Ranking Member of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee... Sen. Lieberman.

(As an aside, there is what promises to be a great book now out on the disastrous Young Republicans and crony convention that was the CPA by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, who adapted parts of it for this Washington Post piece last weekend.)

• Happy New Year to everyone celebrating this weekend. Likely to be a light posting day.


• New radio ad: "Calling in Sick":
  

  (SFX: TELEPHONE RINGING)
  
  JOE LIEBERMAN SOUND-A-LIKE: I gotta go to Iowa. Or is it New Hampshire today?
  
  ANNCR: Joe Lieberman says he wants to represent Connecticut in Washington. So, where has he been? You can do something about it. Vote Ned Lamont in November.



• I would never have guessed that Sen. Lieberman had already aired 19 TV ads during this campaign, but it appears to be the case. According to Vermont's Rutland Herald, the only two candidates nationwide who have aired more commercials are self-funding Republican challengers: Richard Tarrant (R-VT), who has already spent over $5 million of his own money against Dan Gerstein's favorite congressman, Bernie Sanders, in a race for the seat being vacated by Sen. Jeffords; and Pete Ricketts (R-NE), who has spent $10 million of his own money against Sen. Nelson (D-NE).
  
  And who's paying for the Lieberman ads promoting "people, not politics"? Ordinary "people" like Mel Sembler. Lovely.


• In Minnesota, Mark Kennedy's computers seem to have now been infected with the Lieberman Virus 2.0. CTBob has the details:
  

  There's no doubt this is something that Kennedy's campaign did to their own website, on purpose, and then blamed their opposition for it. A detailed overview of the controversy is located on the DFL Senate Blog.
  
  Gee, can you think of anybody else who might stoop to that level?

  
  How is that investigation going?


• Sen. Lieberman plans his "major" Iraq address for Monday. It will undoubtedly be more of the same, with no meaningful plan to change course or hold the current administration accountable.

Same old, same old from the Veep today:

Senator Lieberman was my opponent in 2000 -- Al Gore's running mate, a longtime senator, and one of the most loyal and distinguished Democrats of the generation. Joe is also an unapologetic supporter of the global war on terror. He voted to support military action in Iraq when most other senators in both parties did the same -- and he's had the courage to stick by that vote even when the going gets tough. And now, for that reason alone, because he supported the President in the global war on terror, the Dean Democrats have purged Joe Lieberman from the ranks of the Democratic Party in Connecticut.

Scooter, Sembler, Cheney, and Lieberman.... one big happy family.

Lindsay Beyerstein:

Any principled Democrat would recoil from Sembler, but it gets worse. Sembler is also a self-styled drug treatment entrepreneur who founded Straight, Incorporated, a residential drug treatment program for teenagers.

Between 1976 and 1993, thousands of youth were routinely subjected to physical, emotional, and sexual abuse as part of Straight’s "confrontational" approach to treatment. Some inmates were held for years against their will. The program has been sued dozens of times for brutalizing inmates and some staff members faced criminal charges for their role in the abuse.

Sembler founded Straight after a congressional investigation determined that the last detox program he oversaw, The Seed, was using mind-control tactics similar to those used by North Koreans during the Cold War.

The Seed was a mind-control cult, but it was positively benign compared to Straight....

We’re all judged by the company we keep, and Joe Lieberman has some very disreputable friends.

Read the whole thing. Lindsay has more on her personal connection to the story here.

Another Rove- and Republican-backed Senate candidate is able to courageously rise above it:



I'm sure the Connecticut for Lieberman party will join the Steele Democrats in pushing to defeat the petty, partisan Ben Cardin (D) in Maryland.

As for the DSCC:

Says DSCC spokesman Phil Singer: "Michael Steele is trying to hide the fact that his campaign is funded and directed by George Bush and the Republican party."

Seems to be a trend these days...

Jesus' General approves:

Dear Sen. Lieberman,

I bet you're still all tingly after the fundraiser Mel Sembler held for you. After all, not only is Amb. Sembler one of Our Leader's greatest fundraisers, he's also the man who pioneered some of your favorite interrogation techniques--the so-called "strong methods;" things like humiliation, beatings, and shoving things up the suspect's ass.

Unfortunately, this is not a joke.

Ugh.

A year ago, after Libby's indictment, from Sen. Lieberman's own website:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 28, 2005...

“When the Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States is indicted in a criminal case, it is a sad day in the history of our government. While it is important to remember that an indictment is not a conviction, these charges are extremely serious. Our national security, intelligence protocols to protect covert agents and classified information must be protected. Witnesses under oath and in legal proceedings must tell the truth and be held accountable if they do not. The public’s confidence in government has been damaged by this matter and it must be restored. For this reason, Mr. Libby’s resignation is appropriate and necessary.

“This indictment is about serious violations of law. It is not about partisan politics or the war in Iraq. Whatever our party affiliation or opinion on the war, we all agree that perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to a grand jury are inexcusable criminal acts. That is where our shared focus should be so that today’s indictment does not become one more cause of debilitating political divisiveness in our government.”

Sen. Lieberman is now accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars raised by the Chair of Libby's defense fund and contributed by who knows how many other supporters of a man indicted on what Sen. Lieberman himself termed "inexcusable criminal acts."

Gerstein says no problem, it went like "gangbusters":

Lieberman's communications director, Dan Gerstein, said the reception held at Mel Sembler's St. Petersburg offices - where guests were asked to contribute a minimum of $1,000 to the three-term incumbent's battle against Greenwich Democrat Ned Lamont - went like "gangbusters."

Gerstein said today that he did not immediately know of other prominent Republicans who have offered to help Lieberman raise campaign cash, with the exception of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

I'd like to promise this will be the last post on this today... but I might be wrong. The AP:

"He's a man of principle," [Mel] Sembler, a former ambassador to Italy and Australia, said of Lieberman in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Thursday."

Mel Sembler, a former Republican National Committee finance committee chairman, helped organize a reception that raised "about a few hundred thousand dollars" for Lieberman, who was in attendance....

Sembler, who is board chairman of the Sembler Company, a real estate and shopping center development company, said he has worked hard to raise money for [Scooter] Libby's legal defense fund.

"It's amazing to go to all this hard work when a crime never got committed," said Sembler, who also described himself as "dear friends" with Cheney.

Update: See, this is why I didn't make any promises:

This week Republican money giant Mel Sembler held a fundraiser for Lieberman in St. Petersburg. Sembler was asked if he'd ever raised money for a Democrat, and told The Miami Herald that he hadn't done so in the last 76 years. Sembler is 76 years old.

In a hypothetical world where the Democrats take control of the Senate in November, Sen. Lieberman wins due to massive GOP turnout, and he deigns to caucus with the Democrats, he may very well become Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

He already owes zero allegiance to Democrats, whose clear verdict he discarded after the primary, and who will have voted in even greater numbers against him in the general.

But he would owe a hell of a lot to Republican lobbyists, Republican elected officials, Republican voters, Republican fundraisers, neoconservative ideologues, Karl Rove, and people like the chairman of Scooter Libby's Defense Fund, who are currently keeping his campaign afloat, keeping his ads on the air, keeping his staffers paid.

And coincidentally, as The Hill noted last month, he would also be in a prime position of power to slow or stop any investigations of Bush administration officials:

The issue of Lieberman’s seniority would arise most dramatically if Lieberman wins re-election and Democrats recapture control of the chamber. That would slot Lieberman to take over as chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the panel primarily responsible for investigating the executive branch....

Allowing Lieberman to retain his seniority could put the senator now running as an independent in charge of the Senate’s chief investigative committee. If Democrats took control of either chamber they would likely launch investigations of the White House’s handling of the war in Iraq and homeland security.

There's no reason to take Sen. Lieberman at his word when he says he won't caucus with the Republicans if he wins. He's already bailed on the party once. Why wouldn't he do it again?

But if he were to caucus with the Democrats in a potential majority, the end result for those truly seeking accountability for the Bush administration might be even worse.

It's exactly this type of "Bipartisanship" and "Experience" that Connecticut doesn't need.

Turns out former RNC finance chair Mel Sembler, who hosted Sen. Lieberman for a huge big-money fundraiser last night in Florida, is also the chairman of Scooter Libby's defense fund:

What do Scooter Libby and Joe Lieberman have in common? A lot of rich friends, apparently.

Following closely on the news that Joe Lieberman's biggest public apologist, Marty Peretz, had joined Libby's Defense Fund, we learn that the Chair of Libby's Defense Fund, Mel Sembler, is hosting a pricey fundraiser for Holy Joe. Sembler, you'll remember, also happens to have been the Ambassador to Italy when SISMI started sending bogus Niger claims to the CIA.

Defending indicted Bush Administration officials by day, raising money for Sen. Lieberman's campaign by night.

It will be interesting to see the names on last night's guest list when the next FEC reports come out. How many of Scooter's backers are paying for Sen. Lieberman's campaign? And what does having the support of Libby's finance man portend for Sen. Lieberman's willingness - or ability - to provide any real oversight of the Cheney administration in a new Congress?

In the meantime, here's the rest of Sembler's personal contributions this cycle, including contributions to the RNC ($25,000), Katherine Harris ($4,200), and Tom DeLay ($1,000).

Again, Gerstein:

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."

1. Vote for Ned to be Russ Feingold's next "Progressive Patriot."


2. Read the GQ article and forward it to your friends and family.


3. Contribute a few dollars to reach Ned's new fundraising goal (pic on the left). Ask your friends and family to do the same.

• The Norwich Bulletin reports on Ned's visit to a health care center in Willimantic yesterday:
  

  "We should be proud of facilities like this, and the long-term relationship it has with patients," Lamont said, praising the emphasis on preventive measures. [Executive Director of Thompson Ecumenical Empowerment Group Donna] Grant called that welcome news.
  
  "I would like to have someone new in the system who is open to the values that preventive measures and wellness programs can make," she said.



• Sen. Lieberman held a press conference call yesterday to run away from his bought-and-paid-for record on health care. More at today's Cup of Joe:
  

  NED LAMONT HAS ACTUALLY RUN A BUSINESS & MET PAYROLL; HE UNDERSTANDS SMALL BUSINESS HEALTH POLICY: "I'm challenging a guy that really never spent an hour in the private sector, spent his whole life on the public payroll," Ned Lamont has said. "I'm a guy that started up a business from scratch, met a payroll and I think it's a good point of view to have down in Washington, especially when it comes to health care."



• David Broder thinks entrenched incumbents like Mike DeWine and Joe Lieberman are the answer to all of D.C.'s problems. Josh Marshall has the best summary:
  

  Shorter David Broder: Bush is a lawless president at war with the constitution. Also, Gore and Kerry, who opposed him, are know-it-alls I don't like. Hopefully Republican moderates and Lieberman can all get reelected so the country can be saved.



• The Day reports a three-way debate is scheduled for Oct. 23rd in New London, moderated by George Stephanopoulos.

Dan Gerstein, eleven days ago:

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."

Sen. Lieberman, tonight:

Democrat [sic] Joe Lieberman got some help from a prominent Florida Republican on Wednesday night in his bid to win re-election to the U.S. Senate from Connecticut as an independent.

Lieberman attended a fund-raising reception hosted for him by Mel Sembler, a former finance committee chairman for the Republican National Committee....

In addition to his fund-raising work for the RNC, Sembler was also the U.S. ambassador to Italy during President George W. Bush's first term and the ambassador to Australia during the term of Bush's father, George H.W. Bush.

About 100 guests attended the event at Sembler's office in St. Petersburg. His company develops shopping centers in Florida and nearby states.

Guests were asked to contribute a minimum of $1,000 up to a maximum of $2,100 to Lieberman's campaign.

New ARG poll has the race at Lieberman (Lieberman) 47%, Lamont (D) 45%.

Among unaffiliated voters, Lamont (D) leads 47%-45%.

Republicans split 66% for Lieberman (Lieberman), 15% for Lamont (D), and 8% for "Others," (which I suppose must Alan Schlesinger's newest pseudonym).

As always, Sen. Lieberman's policies - such as his vote for the disastrous Bush-Cheney Energy Bill in 2005 - are determined by campaign contributions from his D.C. lobbyist friends:

LIEBERMAN REWARDED FOR HIS “BIPARTISAN’ ANTI-ENVIRONMENT VOTES WITH ENERGY INDUSTRY CASH: Lieberman has cashed in from his willingness to cast key votes against the environment. In the last year and a half alone, he has received more than $72,000 in corporate PAC contributions from the energy industry – that’s almost $1,000 in energy PAC contributions per week since 2005. Since 2000, he’s raked in more than $285,000 from the energy industry. This includes PAC contributions from, among others, Texaco, Conoco, British Petroleum and Occidental Petroleum. It also includes contributions from the natural gas industry that will benefit from Lieberman’s support of stripping Connecticut’s ability to regulate the construction of natural gas terminals in Long Island Sound. Specifically, Lieberman has received contributions from the American Gas Assocation, Consolidated Natural Gas and the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America. Meanwhile, Enron lobbyist Michael Lewan (also formerly Lieberman’s chief of staff and a top fundraiser for John Rowland) continues to hold K Street fundraisers for Lieberman in Washington, D.C. [Sources: Center for Responsive Politics, Lieberman report, 2001-2006; Center for Responsive Politics, Lieberman PAC report; Hartford Courant, 8/4/06]

Rewarded, also, by companies like Sempra, which has been called "Enron's twin brother" by California's Attorney General for ripping off California consumers during the 2000-01 energy "crisis" in which Enron was implicated. Sen. Lieberman got a corporate jet ride and tens of thousands of dollars of bundled contributions from Sempra, conveniently, just a few weeks after his vote for the energy bill.

But, hey, give the Senator some credit. At least he shows up to vote when the issues matter to his real constituents.

And Shays, in Greenwich on Monday. George Gallo:

Gallo said proceeds will support the party's effort this fall and its entire ticket, including U.S. Senate nominee Alan Schlesinger.

"He's one of our candidates, so absolutely," Gallo said....

Undecided about whether he will attend the fundraiser, Schlesinger said Bush endorsed the party's entire Connecticut ticket in a television interview earlier this month.

"The decisions that are being made about my race in the Republican Party are not being made by George Bush, and I appreciate his support," Schlesinger said.

Update: Ned has a great line in a transcript of an extensive interview just posted at The American Prospect:

I just came from the Wall Street Journal meeting and believe me, I told them Alan Schlesinger, the Republican, was an extraordinary candidate, I guarantee he will cut your taxes -- their eyes lit up at that point -- OK, he does a little gambling on the side, but nobody’s perfect. [laughter]

("Single Issue" Edition.)

• Ken Cain's article about the race in GQ is now available online. He does the best job of any reporter so far of capturing what was really happening on the campaign trail during the primary. Here's a roundup of some of the best parts, but buy the October issue at a newsstand if you want to leaf through it at your leisure:


• On Sen. Lieberman's traveling Potemkin Village, also known as the "Tomorrow Tour":
  

  A small gaggle of cameramen wait in the shade. Kids in bright Lieberman T-shirts, some paid to be there, array themselves around the perimeter, at the unsubtle directions of Joe’s advance staff, and wait for the signal to simulate spontaneous enthusiasm. The bus arrives with police escort and disgorges a phalanx of press and staff. Joe’s driver, Joe Derosier, a man with big hands, belly, tattoos, and smile, steps off the bus and rubs his eyes. The cameramen come out into the light and get in the ready position, and then everyone waits for an uncomfortably long time in the sun until Joe finally bounds out of the bus, trying in vain to fake the look of recently arrived exuberance.
  
  The first human within reach is Derosier. Joe grabs his hand and embraces him in a full-on man-clench for the cameras, as though Derosier were a faithful supporter who drove out to the mouth of the Norwalk River just because he’s eager to hear more about Joe’s support for bike trails. I turn to the young staffer next to me and say, “Wait, that’s his driver he just embraced!” She shrugs like, No shit, you idiot, that’s how this works. And she’s right. This event might as well be taking place on a soundstage. All that matters is that the manufactured support looks real on the evening news tonight and in the paper tomorrow.



• On Sen. Lieberman's hemming and hawing on Iraq in the back of the (mostly empty) bus:
  

  “...I say all the time, to just remind people, that I was very critical of Bush and Rumsfeld, post-Saddam. History will judge them, and I think it will judge them very harshly on that. It’s part of the reason why we’re in such difficulty today. Not the only reason. Those forces—well, anyway—”
  
  “I haven’t heard you say that. As one nonvoting constituent, it gives me faith to hear that.”
  
  “You mean about the Bush screwups?”
  
  “Yeah, and that history will judge them harshly. That sounds new.”
  
  “Yeah, you know, I do say it, but, I don’t know, it’s interesting. I—we may look back at this—” He stops again and laughs bitterly....
  
  The most fascinating thing in politics is the intersection between a grave policy question and an individual leader’s personality. In my opinion, there’s a major psychodrama playing out in Joe’s head about Iraq. He aborts every sentence that implies a concession that he made a mistake. It’s like his conscience starts to get just a bit ahead of his pride, and then the hubris races to catch up and tackles the concession midsentence....



• On an adult Lieberman supporter supervising a bunch of kids protesting, of all things, Ned's endorsement by the machinists' union:
  

  I ask him if he’s a volunteer for the Lieberman campaign. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t think I’m supposed to say.”
  
  “Wait, you don’t know who you work for?”
  
  “The less I know the better,” he says.
  
  “What are you guys up to, exactly? Are these kids supposed to be protesting the machinists’ endorsement of Ned?”
  
  “I just brought them out here,” he says. “That’s all I do. That’s all I know.”



• On D.C. lobbyist Richard Goodstein supervising a bunch of Lieberman kids at "Cheeseburger-gate":
  

  The big bald guy is right in my face now. I ask him where he’s from, what his role is here, and he shouts and wags his finger and demands my credentials, yelling to the crowd that I’m not a legitimate reporter and I must be with Ned. Suddenly, I realize the goal here is to provoke Ned into overreacting on-camera. And if not him, then someone on his staff. And it’s working; I want badly to take a swing at this lunatic, and I’m not even on the campaign. I flash back to yesterday and the Banana Man and the thug yelling at Tom Swan, “Hit me! Do it!”
  
  Today’s poll shows that Ned has surged ahead by thirteen points, and it dawns on me that this is their Hail Mary tactic....



• Read the whole thing. (And tell me if I violated any copyright law by quoting too extensively above). Ken was also on Colin McEnroe's show a couple of days ago (mp3).

Always reminds me of everything Sen. Lieberman isn't:

Reilly appeared before supporters at about 9:45 p.m. to congratulate Patrick for running an "outstanding campaign" and pledged to support Patrick. "We gave it everything we had. it just didnt work out for us,'' Reilly said.

The U.S. military will likely maintain or possibly even increase the current force levels of more than 140,000 troops in Iraq through next spring, the top US. commander in the Middle East said Tuesday in one of the gloomiest assessments yet of how quickly American forces can be brought home.

Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, said military leaders would consider adding troops or extending the Iraq deployments of other units if needed....

Late last year, military leaders had said they hoped to reduce troop levels to about 100,000 by the end of this year. But Abizaid said Tuesday that the rising sectarian violence and slow progress of the Iraqi government made that impossible.

- The AP, today.

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

- Lieberman supporter Sgt. James Liska at a press conference organized by the Lieberman campaign last week.

Update: Atrios reminds us of some of Joe's greatest hits from this summer:

Remember what Joe Lieberman had to say on July 6?

So I am confident that the situation is improving enough on the ground that by the end of this year, we will begin to draw down significant numbers of American troops, and by the end of the next year more than half of the troops who are there now will be home.

And then from July 19:

BRIDGEPORT — U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman believes the U.S. will withdraw a "solid' contingent of its military forces in Iraq by the end of the year because of gains made by the Iraqi armed forces.

The facts:

Joe Lieberman was wrong on Iraq in October 2002.

He was wrong on Iraq in 2003.

He was wrong in 2004.

He was wrong in 2005.

He was wrong on July 6th of this year.

He was wrong on July 19th of this year.

And, to the minimal extent that he even talks about Iraq anymore, he is wrong now.

Update 2: And just to illustrate how everyone wasn't wrong about Iraq four years ago, read Jim Webb's prescient op-ed from September 2002.

• The Times reports on the AFSCME endorsement, announced yesterday:
  

  The switch by the union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, is the biggest labor boost Mr. Lamont has received since winning the Democratic primary last month....
  
  Both Mr. Lieberman and Mr. Lamont had lobbied the municipal union for its endorsement, speaking to the union delegates personally on Friday. News of the endorsement was reported Monday in The Hartford Courant.
  
  Sal Luciano, the president of the state union, said that the members became skeptical of Mr. Lieberman after the primary when several prominent White House officials suggested that they supported his independent bid in the general election.
  
  “When he was running in the Democratic primary, we felt he had a good labor record and we owed him our endorsement,” Mr. Luciano said Monday. “When Joe switched in the general election, we became increasingly concerned with him moving closer to Bush. We know Ned will stand up to the Bush agenda.”



• The Courant reports on Ned's health care event in Bridgeport yesterday:
  

  Lamont, who defeated U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman in a Democratic primary that focused on the war in Iraq, is part of a wave of Democratic candidates who think health care is the next galvanizing issue....
  
  On Monday, Lamont toured Optimus Health Care, a busy, federally subsidized clinic on East Main Street, where about one-third of the patients are uninsured. Federal funding has been cut 1 percent, while costs have risen 14 percent in recent years.
  
  "We're seeing more and more uninsured than we ever have before," said Ludwig M. Spinelli, the chief executive officer of Optimus.
  
  "My take is we have a health care system that is broken and getting worse," Lamont said.
  
  "I think it's a natural issue for Ned Lamont," [Senate President Pro Tem Donald] Williams said. "He is an employer. He has made payrolls and understands the need to attract and keep good employees."



• Iraq isn't the only issue on which Sen. Lieberman has avoided voting. Today's "Cup of Joe" takes on Sen. Lieberman's history of running away from almost any vote on Medicare Part D:
  

  During the 2003 consideration of President Bush’s destructive Medicare Part D bill, Sen. Joe Lieberman issued 8 press releases claiming he was outraged about the legislation and promising to do whatever he could to stop it. Yet, when it came time to vote on the bill and on amendments to fix the bill, Lieberman was nowhere to be found. He attended just 4 out of the Senate’s 38 votes on the Medicare bill, opting instead to hold fundraisers in California for himself so that he could add to the more than $1.8 million in health industry campaign contributions he has raked in over the last 6 years. By contrast, Ned Lamont has refused corporate and union PAC contributions, and has said it’s time for a Senator from Connecticut who isn’t afraid to show up, cast votes, and fight for real health care reform.



• The September Rasmussen poll shows the race at a standstill since last month, Lieberman (CFL) 45% - Lamont (D) 43% - Schlesinger (R) 5%. That's a huge difference from the POS (that's Public Opinion Strategies) internal poll leaked a couple of weeks ago. Speaking of Lieberman's "Democrat-slaying" polling firm, they seem to be doing great work in the net neutrality debate too.

The Journal-Inquirer in an absolutely must-read editorial on Sen. Lieberman today:

Ned Lamont gave his formal policy address on Iraq at Yale on Wednesday and Lieberman gave his at Fairfield University yesterday.

Lamont said what he has said before: The war need not have been fought. It was sold to us based on false premises and information. We need to set a date certain for withdrawal of our troops. Period.

Right or wrong, Lamont is clear and consistent.

Lamont also developed some context: He essayed the notion of building allies for a foreign policy and doing it across party lines. And he tried to explain why he thinks the country is actually less safe than on Sept 11, 2001. It was a sober speech, if nothing new.

What Joe said most recently, prior to Friday, was: We should get out of Iraq ASAP, but too soon would be a grave mistake. It's hard to elaborate on that because it makes no logical sense....

Any politician worth his salt should know what he thinks about Iraq, off the top of his head. And he should be willing and able to articulate it.

Rep. John Murtha, for example, needs no notes or talking points. He speaks his heart and mind because he knows his mind.

Any politician who can't do this has ceded all credibility. The war in Iraq is the issue of the moment. If you need more time, advice, and packaging to respond, you are not fit for election, or re-election.

It's official - Sen. Lieberman is in a three-way tie for the third line on the ballot (Sec. of State press release via CLP):

There are a total of five candidates running for United States Senator this year in Connecticut: Alan Schlesinger of the Republican Party, Ned Lamont Democratic Party, Timothy Knibbs of the Concerned Citizens Party, Ralph Ferrucci of the Green Party, and Joseph Lieberman of the Connecticut For Lieberman Party. The sequence in which they will appear in Column 2 on the November 7th ballot is as follows:

* Alan Schlesinger
* Ned Lamont
* Timothy Knibbs
* Ralph Ferrucci
* Joe Lieberman

Keep in mind that the entire raison d'être of the faux "Connecticut for Lieberman" party is that it would allow him a higher spot on the ballot than simply running as an unaffiliated candidate.

Cynical politics from a cynical politician.

• Huge labor news, as AFSCME dumps Lieberman, endorses Lamont:
  

  "Since the Aug. 8 primary, we paid close attention to the remarks of both men," Luciano said. "We saw Joe Lieberman moving closer and closer to Bush, while Ned Lamont held firm in his strong opposition to the direction Bush is taking us."
  
  Council 4 is a politically active union that represents 35,000 members and is the state's largest affiliate of the AFL-CIO. Lieberman and Lamont each lobbied for the endorsement in recent weeks, aware that Council 4 was revisiting its Senate endorsement. This culminated in personal appeals to union delegates at their New Britain headquarters Friday.
  
  "In the end, our delegates realized that it boiled down to a simple question: Which candidate will stand up to George Bush and Dick Cheney?" Luciano said. "That candidate is Ned Lamont and only Ned Lamont."

  
  Lamont has also won the support of UAW and SEIU since the primary.


• Connecticut New York for Lieberman:
  

  HARTFORD, Conn. -- Republican New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will host a fundraiser for U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman at the mayor's Upper East Side town house, Lieberman's campaign announced Saturday night.
  
  Lieberman, who lost the Democratic primary to Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont, is running for re-election as an independent, a move that has alienated many Democrats.
  
  Dan Gerstein, a spokesman for Lieberman's campaign, said the fundraiser will be held on Nov. 1 and will be co-chaired another Republican, New York Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, and former Democratic Mayor Ed Koch.

  
  Al D'Amato?


• The Torrington Register-Citizen on Ned wowing the crowd in Goshen yesterday:
  

  He may have arrived late, but Democratic senatorial candidate Ned Lamont impressed the patient crowd and talked with all who stayed after a town hall meeting at Camp Cochipianee Sunday....
  
  "What (Lamont) has been able to do is take the war in Iraq and make it an overriding issue," Kelley said. "It's not just the war per se, but what the war is doing."
  
  Jan Dudek, Sharon, will also be voting for Lamont and said that she is "sick" of what the Bush administration is doing.
  "I really like the way (Lamont) speaks honestly about everything," Dudek said....
  
  Dudek was infuriated by Lieberman's support of Bush with regard to the Plan B emergency contraceptive, where women have to go to certain hospitals to get the pill. She said that many people, who live as much as an hour away from the nearest hospital, cannot travel to that hospital.
  
  George Rolfe, a resident of Torrington since 1971, said Lamont's campaign was part of an opportunity to "save America." Rolfe said that Lieberman forgot his constituents when he ran for vice president in 2000.
  
  "I am looking for a representative that is going to fill that title," Rolfe said.



• Ned will be at a health care center in Bridgeport this morning to discuss his vision for health care.


• Update: Meanwhile, this morning's Cup of Joe asks what $1.8 million in health industry money buys these days:
  

  LIEBERMAN LEADS EFFORT TO BLOCK UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE: In the 1990s, Lieberman spearheaded the effort to shut down any congressional debate over health care. On 8/20/94, Knight Ridder newspapers reported that the "dream of guaranteed, cradle-to-grave health insurance for all Americans appeared to be dead Friday" after Lieberman introduced legislation designed to effectively undermine and kill major health reform being debated in the Senate. Since that time, Lieberman has not pushed any serious plan to expand health care to all Americans. This is likely the reason that when Lieberman was campaigning in Arizona during the 2004 Democratic presidential primary, the state’s largest newspaper noted Lieberman "do[es] not favor universal health care." [Knight-Ridder, 8/20/94; Arizona Republic, 1/22/04]

"We can argue about what happened several years ago, it has some historical significance,” Mr. Lieberman said in an interview last week. “History will judge that...."

- Sen. Lieberman, New York Times, 9/18/06

Asked by Woodward how history would judge the war, Bush replied: "History. We don't know. We'll all be dead."

- President Bush quoted in Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward, 4/17/04

Lieberman blamed Bush for his primary loss during his appearance on "Face The State" this morning:

"It's clear that in the Democratic party, that we're so angry at President Bush and the Iraq war … notwithstanding the fact they agree with me on most other issues. They wanted to cast a 'no' vote," Lieberman said.

Sen. Lieberman still cannot admit that he himself might have had anything to do with the fact that Democrats turned out in record numbers last month to vote him out of office.

Much less that Ned Lamont's inspiring campaign might have had anything to do with his historic win.

But that wasn't nearly the most insulting thing to come out of the interview this morning.

Update: From JoanBasil in the comments:

I would like to see Ned Lamont use what Jim Webb used in the Allen/Webb debate on Meet The Press this morning:

Webb said that he remembered what President Eisenhower said about the Korean War and the mistakes the Truman Administration made and that the same people who got us into that war would not be the people who got us out of it.

Thats a very strong point. Bush will never admit he made any mistakes and neither will Lieberman.

It really is all about judgment.

(Inside Baseball Edition.)

• The Red Sox-Yankees Ad has already been viewed over 14,000 times on YouTube, and was in the top 30 "most viewed" videos of the day yesterday. Send it to your friends.


• Quinnipiac political science Chair Scott McClean talks about Lieberman's de-facto GOP candidacy - and the crucial role unaffiliated anti-war voters will play - in an op-ed in today's NYT CT section:
  

  Republican leaders have reasoned that it is better to have a senator who is a frequent supporter for President Bush’s foreign policy like Mr. Lieberman, than an avowed opponent like Mr. Lamont. Thus, as the war becomes more of a defining issue in the campaign, the three-way Connecticut Senate race takes on the characteristics of a classic two-party battle, but with Mr. Lieberman increasingly compelled to take over the Republican role.
  
  Republican help for Mr. Lieberman may not be enough, though. As in most elections in Connecticut, the state’s unpredictable independent voters hold the balance. In Connecticut, independents — defined as people who do not identify with any political party — are a larger group than either Democrats or Republicans.... Polls show more independents have turned against the war since May, with 65 percent now thinking that going to war with Iraq was the wrong thing to do and 59 percent favoring either a troop reduction or total pullout from Iraq. The problem for Mr. Lieberman is that more than one-third of his independent supporters disagree with his support of the Iraq war. Can Mr. Lieberman hang on to these anti-war independents?...
  
  If Mr. Lieberman becomes identified — intentionally or not — with the White House view of the war, he could lose more of his anti-war independents. Mr. Lieberman may find that because of Iraq, the political center has finally passed him by. And if that happens, he’s a goner.



• In an op-ed for The Day, Stephen Katz highlights an important and under-covered storyline in this race: the fact that Sen. Lieberman's national ambitions have been a large part of what has hurt him so dearly back home:
  

  Even if Lieberman loses his Senate seat, it is clear that he finds a deeper experience in running — the chance to step into the role as a national figure and statesman. America needs national figures who are statesmen and stateswomen. Yet however attractive that role may be to some in Congress, including their ability to attract campaign contributions at the national level, the voters who count most come from only one place....
  
  Rightly satisfied with the public support he received as candidate for vice president, Lieberman wrongly ignored how good his fortune was at being re-elected to the Senate in 2000. He continued his bid for statesman on and off the Senate floor, seeking the presidency in 2004, and choosing Iraq and Bush — the wrong issue and the wrong political leader to support — while continually attempting to shape his statesmanship.
  
  Lieberman's thirst to be perceived as a statesman blurred his political judgment and caused him to misjudge the value of statesmanship to voters.
  
  Even when statesmanship is well-placed on the political stage it does not necessarily translate into leadership. If the voters, young and old, wish for one quality in their elected officials today it is leadership — and preferably in new directions.



• Another independent poll should be out in the next few days showing the race a dead heat.


• More amazing turnout at volunteer meetings across the state. This photo is from from the Norwalk office grand opening last week with over 170 people in attendance:
  
  


• Update: The Connecticut Post gives Joe yet another "thumbs down" for attacking Ned Lamont's teaching in Bridgeport public schools:
  

  Thumbs down to the campaign of U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., for turning at best a matter of semantics into a full-blown campaign issue. The Lieberman camp raised more than a few eyebrows this week when it attacked Ned Lamont, the Greenwich multi-millionaire and businessman who is the Democratic Party nominee for Lieberman's seat, for claiming to be "a teacher" in his ads and on his Web site. While Lieberman doesn't contend that Lamont does teach part-time on a voluntary basis at Bridgeport's Harding High School, his campaign accused Lamont of misleading voters into thinking he's a full-time teacher. While it's questionable in the first place to claim that part-time teachers aren't really teachers — there are no doubt many part-time teachers who would argue otherwise — it's downright confounding that Lieberman would choose Lamont's teaching, of all things, as a campaign issue. Furthermore, Lamont's campaign ads with his former students explicitly says Lamont was both a "volunteer" teacher and that he "had another job running a business," and is not a full-time teacher. Lieberman and his campaign staff should stick to the relevant matters at hand instead of clamoring over non-issues. Otherwise, it could be a very long autumn until the election.