The Ballad of Holy Joe
As Duncan also observed, in addition to the litany of other negative things that can be said about him Joe Lieberman is almost comically unqualified and unfit to be head of the FBI:
Lieberman lacks the conventional qualifications for an FBI director, never having served as a law enforcement agent or federal prosecutor. He lacks the kind of administrative experience that one normally looks for in an agency chief. At the age of 75, he’s also very much on the old side for a 10-year appointment. But “Trump bonded with Lieberman” at their meeting on Wednesday, according to Politico, and though personal rapport between the president and the FBI director has not traditionally been considered necessary or even desirable, Trump enjoys breaking with tradition.
Since leaving the Senate, Lieberman has landed as an attorney as Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP, whose founding partner Marc Kasowitz happens to be Donald Trump’s lawyer on litigation matters.
For the president to fire the FBI director in an effort to stymie an investigation into his associates, and then replace him with an unqualified successor who happens to be an employee of his personal lawyer, seems a wee bit fishy to me; indeed, Politico quotes a senior Democratic aide as saying it “could be an issue for Democrats.” Another issue for Lieberman will be that grassroots progressive activists hate his guts and have for years.
It goes without saying that anyone who would take this job under these circumstances is not fit to have it. But tying himself to Trump would be an even fitter cap to Lieberman’s career than his decision to torpedo the Medicare buy-in he had previously supported for the sole purpose of pissing off liberals.
Our younger readers may not remember just how besotted the national media was with Joe Lieberman. His self-serving sanctimoniousness was celebrated, like the cut-and-paste virtue jobs assembled by Gamblin’ Bill Bennett. Putting the smarmy prick on the ticket earned Al Gore basically the only positive press coverage he got during the 2000 campaign. And outside of Connecticut, 2004 demonstrated that the media was pretty much his only constituency. One would hope that this would take most of the varnish off, but on the other hand as Paul Ryan demonstrates some pols can survive anything. I’m sure that for the Fourniers and Haperins of the world Donald Trump will become president for the seventh time if he tabs Lieberman.