Newsverse: The Dream of Joe Lieberman (Or, Joseph and the Amazing Charcoal-Gray Suitcoat)

By Jerry Adler

Horatio athwart the bridge

The Yanks on Cemetery Ridge

Oprah standing at the fridge—

Were heroes, in their way.

Mandela shackled behind bars,

Odysseus, lashed to the spars,

DeLay, foxtrotting with the stars

Inspire us today.

But it takes a special Joe

To swim upstream against the flow

To stand alone (if not quite tall)

To listen to the urgent call

Of conscience and of indignation

And Meet the Press and Face the Nation,

Defy the media to get ya

And speak out on behalf of Aetna.

And Cigna, of PA.

Generations yet unborn

Will hear about the fateful morn

When, stout of heart and stuffed of shirt,

Joe unleashed a mighty blurt

Of cant and folderol and bluster

It was a famous filibuster!

A second Henry Clay!

What GHI can do for you

And mankind won’t be crucified

Upon a Cross of Blue.

And thanks to Joe, no public option

Would ever make it to adoption

And grateful to be spared that choice

Posterity will long rejoice,

Exclaim with loud or whispered breath:

Give Us Lieberman, Or Give Us Death!