Orthodox Democrat: The fall of Joe Lieberman - political decisions of Senator Joe Lieberman

And affirmative action? Here Lieberman carried significant moral heft. In 1995, he said, "Affirmative action is dividing us in ways its creators could never have intended, because most Americans who do support equal opportunity and are not biased don't think it is fair to discriminate against some Americans as a way to make up for historic discrimination against other Americans. For after all, if you discriminate in favor of one group on the basis of race, you thereby discriminate against another group on the basis of race."

George Bush would certainly be unwilling to go this far in his public statements. Yet Lieberman and other Democrats in 2000 repeatedly depicted him as an enemy of black Americans.

When it came to Social Security, Lieberman was a brave and pioneering reformer. In 1998 he declared that "a remarkable wave of innovative thinking is advancing the concept of privatization. . . . I think in the end that individual control of part of the retirement Social Security funds has got to happen." The senator voted to take 2 percent of the payroll tax and invest it in private accounts-and to raise the retirement age for both Social Security and Medicare.

Not even Bush-brave and pioneering as he was-would go this far. And yet the Democrats-not excluding their vice-presidential nominee-portrayed him as a threat to the health and well-being of the elderly.

In the Senate, Lieberman embraced other positions as well that are generally regarded as "conservative." He bucked his party to support a cut in the capital-gains tax. He worked with William J. Bennett to censure and correct the entertainment industry. He stood foursquare for tort reform (although this was probably a function of his representing an insurance-industry state; once he went national, this was no longer a problem). And in probably his finest hour, he refused to be an obstructionist for the White House on the committee investigating campaign-finance abuses. He explained that he was loath to "defend the indefensible."

That sets the bar fairly low-a refusal to obstruct a key congressional investigation. Yet Republicans are usually grateful for anything they can get out of a Democrat. This was certainly more than they could get from that committee's senior Democrat, John Glenn. So Lieberman-for the equivalent of declining to push over baby carriages in the street-was lionized. Manner counts as well. Throughout his career, Lieberman has depended heavily on manner. In fact, it has meant the world to him. While that manner is often cloying, it can be thoughtful, genial, and reassuring. As a consequence, Lieberman is badly underrated as a demagogue. Ted Kennedy might say, "Those right-wingers are throwing old people out into the snow!" Lieberman would say-with a sorrowful shake of the head-"It pains me to conclude that our Republican friends simply don't understand that the effects of their policies would be to evict our elderly-among the most precious of God's children-into the dark and forbidding night."