As the year, and the decade that brought us the disastrous Bush Administration comes to a close, it’s that time when the news media ventures into their archives and dusts off crucial news items in order to give us another “year in review” appraisal.
I caught some of the commentary on a few cable news reviews myself the past couple of days, mostly out of curiosity. After all, it’s been quite a decade with a lot of news to cover, but the typical time allotted for programs of this nature seems to be only about an hour squeezed in between things like specials about Tiger Woods, Reality shows and those charming prison “Lockup” marathons. That doesn’t leave much time to cover real news, even for a majority of the media who basically slept through eight years of the Bush Administration, only to awaken last January looking for someone else to blame for all that wreckage. President Obama and a Democratic majority in Congress were most certainly a dream come true for those sleepy, derelict cheerleaders!
Just imagine their dilemma now though, having to pick and choose which stories to cover in so little time. How to decide, and how to frame the message weigh the issues?
Let’s see, not too much dust has settled yet on all those headlines from 2009, what with the GOP lobbing them about nonstop at the Democrats like tennis balls launched from a ball machine. (Because no loyal Republican worth his salt would hurl a ball himself when he could outsource.) As for all those stories that piled up during the Cheney Bush Administration, and will probably continue to pile up ad infinitum? Well, maybe not so much dust gathering there either. It’s more like scorched earth in that department.
Every once in a while though, in spite of themselves someone in the media manages to dig up a little history that inadvertently becomes more relevant than might have been expected. So yesterday, just such an item surfaced, but not exactly from an unlikely source. It came from a serial panderer, a man who would gladly change political parties to suit whomever will grovel at his feet the most.
Enter the self involved and constantly bloviating:
Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-R-and/or-I-Holding National Security And Your Health Hostage. You’re Welcome.-Conn)
Today Sen. Lieberman, who is the Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, stands alongside Dick Cheney, and the party that jumps at any chance to criticize every move that President Obama and the Democrats make, and claims that they are the only ones who will keep the country safe. The very same party that is now using terrorist attacks purely for their own political gain and as a platform for fundraising, apparently in the absurd hopes that they can scare Americans enough to put them back into power. Really.
While you’re digesting that, follow me back to the scorched earth section of the media archives for a moment, where we find another Joe Lieberman from December 9, 2005. That version of Joe Lieberman had this to say about Democrats who dared to disagree with George W. Bush about a withdrawal from Iraq:
On Wednesday, Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut reproached fellow Democrats for criticizing President Bush during a time of war.
“It’s time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be the commander in chief for three more critical years and that in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation’s peril,” Lieberman said.
So, does the Joe from 2009 agree with the Joe from 2005? Maybe someone from the news media could ask him in 2010? Right. We’re probably more likely to get that answer from the voters in 2012.
