Joe Liberman with John McCain
Joe Lieberman, the former US Senator from Connecticut and onetime candidate for Vice-President of the United States has des. He was 82 years old.
“His beloved wife, Hadassah, and members of his family were with him when he passed. Senator Lieberman’s love of God, his family, and America endured throughout his life of service in the public interest,” said his family in a statement.
Lieberman made history, sort of, as the first Jewish-American to be a major party’s candidate for vice president when, in 2000, then Vice-President Al Gore named Joe Lieberman as his running mate.
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“It was an honor to stand side-by-side with him on the campaign trail. I’ll remain forever grateful for his tireless efforts to build a better future for America,” Al Gore said of Lieberman in a statement. “He was a truly gifted leader, whose affable personality and strong will made him a force to be reckoned with. That’s why it came as no surprise to any of us who knew him when he’d start singing his favorite song: Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’. And doing things Joe’s way meant always putting his country and the values of equality and fairness first.”
But then the Democrat took a sharp turn to the right, even supporting the Republican candidate for president, Senator John McCain from Arizona, in 2008 against then Senator Barack Obama.
Before that Joe Lieberman broke from his party by supporting President George W Bush’s unpopular war in Iraq. This led to his defeat in the Democratic Party’s primary election for reelection to the Senate in 2006, so, Lieberman ran as an independent in the general election, winning his fourth and final term in office.
While he caucused with the Democrats, Lieberman opposed much of President Barack Obama’s legislative program. He refused to vote to end filibusters over aspects of the Affordable Care Act, better known as “Obamacare,” and blocked attempts to restore Wall Street regulations whose revocation helped allow for the 2008 sub-prime mortgage debacle that led to the great recession.
Joe Lieberman once said of himself in an interview with Fox News, “I am genuinely an independent. I agree more often than not with Democrats on domestic policy. I agree more often than not with Republicans on foreign and defense policy.”
Joseph Lieberman was also a strong supporter of Israel.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu eulogized him saying on Twitter that he and his wife Sara “grieve with Hadassah and the entire Leiberman family on the passing of our beloved Joe Leiberman.”
Unfortunately, Netanyahu misspelled Lieberman’s name in the post.
“Joe was an exemplary public servant,” added Netanyahu an American patriot and a matchless champion of the Jewish people and the Jewish state. “
In my very first meeting with him decades ago, I was struck by his integrity, decency and civic courage. He had a deep moral sense and common sense and was fearless in the defense of truth.
“He was also an extraordinarily kind and loyal personal friend.”
