The Return of the Two-Headed Snake

Do you remember Zell Miller? He is that loathsome Georgian senator, a democrat in name only, who embarrassed himself and his party by lashing out at John Kerry during the Republican national convention four years ago. He claimed that a Kerry white house would defend this country with “spitballs.” When later challenged by the press to defend his remarks and back them up with substance, he famously said to Chris Matthews, “I wish we lived in the day where you could challenge a person to a duel.” Miller would have been a pitiable curiosity, like a deformed, two-headed snake, had he not been so vehmently ill-tempered. He shortly thereafter left elected office – thank god – and now serves on the board of the National Rifle Association.

Now we have word that Senator John McCain’s personal lap dog, Judas Joe Lieberman, has accepted an invitation to speak at the GOP convention. This makes me laugh, because a lot of conservative Republicans probably wouldn’t have let him into their country clubs eight years ago…now he is going to be one of their key speakers! That’s progress, I suppose. Maybe it has to do with Joe downgrading his belief in Judiasm from Orthodox, to the vaguely undescriptive “observant.” Even though his watered down view on Judaism would now enable him to plan for Iran’s invasion on a Saturday, the real reason Joe has managed to ingratiate himself among the neocon hawks is solely based on his support for our horribly misguided invasion and occupation of Iraq. (That, and a willingness to engage Iran preemptively.) For this the neocons are willing to let bygones be bygones. By the way, those bygones include voting against a federal law banning late term abortions. Amazing how those wedge issues seem so unimportant to the neocons now...that is unless McCain has a senior moment and actually picks him as a running mate. But for now, it's all water under the bridge.

So once again Democrats will have to endure another stray sheep wandering over the fence to gambol with the wolves at this year’s Republican convention. Once again, we’ll hear the same fear mongering claims about Democrats’ unwillingness to preemptively engage our enemies around the world. Those of us clear thinking Americans need not be too concerned this time, because Lieberman’s monontonous and soporiphic speaking style will probably lull his audience to sleep, negating the sort of rallying effect that crazy Zell Miller had. But let’s hope that at the end of the day this move derails Lieberman’s political career as quicly as it did Zeller’s. Then we can just sit back and appreciate this two-headed snake for the pitiable curiosity that he is.