Former Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman, who almost ran as Vice President on John McCain's 2008 ticket bashed Congressional Democrats for refusing to show up in the halls of Congress for Bibi Netanyahu's speech on Tuesday. Speaker John Boehner caused a major rift within the White House and Congress when he purposefully ignored telling the president that he had invited Netanyahu to speak out against the USA/Iran negotiations.
Last week Lieberman wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post begging Democrats to show up and support Netanyau's speech because they shouldn't be percieved as being partisan. Most Americans don't agree with Holy Joe on that one. In a new NBC/WSJ poll only 30% of Americans agree with John Boehner and 48% oppose him for inviting Bibi to speak.
Jan Schakowsky said that Speaker Boehner was trying to set up a political climate that made Republicans the only party that supports Israel and she explained why she wasn't showing up to the speech before Lieberman bashed Democrats.
Lieberman: Whether you like it or not, the fact is that Speaker Boehner made the invitation, he didn't rescind it...
Todd: Would you have done it?
Lieberman: I'm not the Speaker, I can't, honestly the danger for me here once again something really important, namely will Iran get nuclear weapons is going to be swept up in Washington partisanship and politics. I think the best thing for people like Jan who I respect and I know supports a strong US/Israel relationship - the best thing would have been to go, sit there, it would have been a non issue and to some extent the Democrats, who are not going are actually making it partisan by their absence. In other words, Jan is right and John Boehner is trying to prover that are better friends than Israel, then the way to disprove that is for all the Democrats to go.
Seeing Lieberman bash Democrats and shill for Republicans and Speaker Boehner, who is playing politics with sensitive negotiations is a reminder of what a horrible politician and man he is. Unfortunately, the beltway media holds him in high regard so he's alway going to haunt the halls of our media.
And his learned advice on this is that even though Boehner created a major rift with Netanyahu, Democrats should co-sign Republicans horse bleep. He refused to answer Chuck Todd's question on whether he would have invited Bibib to speak if he was Speaker because he wouldn't have. And if they don't show up then Republicans are the only political party that supports Israel.
It's nauseating.
