Lieberman slaps Jim Amann (and Milford) in the face

On Sunday, Senator Joe Lieberman took time out of his busy schedule of undermining the Constitution and helping the President plot the invasion of sovereign nations to come to our little city and stump for one of his political cronies.

And in the process, he slapped another one aside!

From Freda Moon's article in the New Haven Advocate:

Sen. Joe Lieberman, one of the most powerful leaders in all the land, came home this week to endorse a small-time politician of long-standing: Milford Mayor Jim Richetelli, a Republican in a tight race against a young and popular Democrat.

It was a slap in the face of state House Speaker James Amann—a Milford native and arguably the most powerful Democrat in Connecticut—who endorsed Kerri Rowland, the Democratic mayoral candidate, just days before. Amann went out on a limb for Lieberman last year, breaking with his party to stand by Lieberman (who ran and won as an independent) after he lost the Democratic primary to Ned Lamont. Amann's decision cost him the support of progressive Democrats and briefly made him blogger enemy number one.

On Sunday, Lieberman repaid Amann for sticking his neck out by headlining a fund-raiser for the candidate Amann's campaigning against.

I guess the word "loyalty" means something to Senator Joe ONLY if he's on the receiving end of it. This is how your good friend paid you back for your support, Mr. Speaker.

Don't feel too bad, Jimmy...we've ALL been terribly disappointed by the senator many times in the last six years, so it was inevitable that he'd eventually do something to embarrass you, too.

Asked whether he feels he's embarrassed his buddy Amann, Lieberman said, "Jimmy and I, we have a very deep friendship and we have, in a very mutually respectful way, agreed to disagree about this one." Amann didn't return calls for comment.

[...]

This sort of political pay-back is hardly surprising. But why is Lieberman more interested in repaying a favor to a small-town Republican mayor than a major, state-wide political player?

Ed Anderson, a former Lamont supporter and blogger who was amongst the anti-Lieberman protesters outside Richitelli's fund-raiser, believes he knows. "He's spite-driven," Anderson said of Lieberman. "He's sticking it to the state's rank-and-file Democrats for failing to support him."

Kerri Rowland wouldn't offer any theories of her own. "It's not worth my comment," she said. What she would say is that the same day Lieberman's endorsement of Richitelli hit the local newspapers, her website received a flood of donations and her Saturday fund-raiser brought in close to $10,000. "Richitelli's call on Lieberman is a sign that he's worried," she says.

For any remaining Democrats out there who stubbornly cling to the idea that Lieberman is still a Democrat "at heart", the following paragraph should open your eyes for you:

Lieberman's not shy about having abandoned the Connecticut Democratic base. "In my office on August 8, which was the day the primary was last year, they brought a cake in to me, and it said 'Liberation Day,'" recounted Lieberman onstage at the fund-raiser. "In a way what happened last year liberated me to do what was in my heart to do."

Judging from the senator's actions since the war began, we have much to fear from what is in Joe Lieberman's heart.

(...and you can slap Lieberman right back by supporting Kerri Rowland HERE!)