With DADT Repeal, Lieberman Pursues Progressive Redemption

Sen. Joe Lieberman is a man who likes to parade his conscience. It’s why he made such a splash last summer as he made demands that gutted large provisions of the Democrats health-care-reform bill. It’s also the same reason that the Connecticut senator is now leading the charge on repealing the military’s policy limiting gays from serving in the armed forces.

His reason for doing it is the same reason as everyone else’s: restricting homosexuals from service undercuts the entire military, both morally and physically. “When you artificially limit the pool of people who can enlist then you are diminishing military effectiveness,” he said in a statement posted to his Senate Web site. But for Lieberman, the stakes are higher. By getting out in front of an angry, bipartisan, pack that realizes it’s time for repeal, the crafty senator further fortifies his credentials as a true unbeholden independent. Of course he can’t claim to be a moderate─fighting to axe DADT and opposing a public option are at opposite ends of the spectrum─but his two-step over the past year lets him claim he’s not an ideologue, either.

What it looks like is that Lieberman is on the hunt for redemption. In part electoral redemption: his 2012 reelection fight is quickly approaching and a poll early this month characterized the bid as all but “a lost cause.” No doubt some of the progressives who swung for Lieberman over his liberal challenger Ned Lamont in 2006 have felt buyers remorse after their man laid down on the tracks blocking a public option. Yet more important (and especially if he doesn’t win again), Lieberman’s looking these days for reputational redemption. It’s notable in politics to be viewed as a person of conviction, but Lieberman’s self-proclaimed principled stance on health care ended up seeming conniving, hypocritical, and worst of all, petty, as he stuck it to Democratic leaders who didn’t stick their necks out for him when he needed help in 2004 and 2006.

The lingering question, though, is where this leaves Lieberman’s chummy friendship with Sen. John McCain, who Lieberman endorsed and campaigned with in 2008 to the extreme chagrin of his caucus. McCain, a decorated Navy captain, vowed to endorse repealing DADT when military leaders did, which they now do. Yet he remains clung to the further-right stance that gays serving openly would be an unnecessary distraction as America fights two high-stakes wars─believed to be an attempt to hang onto conservative voters in Arizona as he bids for reelection. Friendship in politics might be a lot easier if there weren't politics in politics.