“My vote against going ahead with more debate on this no confidence resolution is not an expression of confidence in Attorney General Gonzales,” Lieberman said on Monday. “It is an expression of opposition to spending any more time on a resolution that will accomplish nothing, instead of going ahead with the next item of business, which is energy legislation.”
The issue I have with his remarks has little to do with Alberto Gonzalez and everything to do with his position during the Republican push for the impeachment of President Clinton in 1999. Take a moment to review Senator Lieberman's positions at that time as reported by CNN;
Lieberman said if the findings didn't claim to convict the president of a crime but instead said that he had been misleading and acted to cover up his misconduct, "then I for one would be hard pressed to vote against it."
In a appearance on "Fox News Sunday," Lieberman also said that adjournment without a vote on the articles of impeachment "would prevent the president from claiming acquittal or an exoneration because there would be no final vote on conviction. And then we just state, without calling him a criminal ... (that) he has committed obstruction of justice ... that he has lied under oath."
I find it interesting that Senator Lieberman felt that he would be hard pressed to vote against a Republican political maneuver that would waste time and do little more than embarrass the President and his party. The issue at hand, the Presidents veracity, is exactly the issue in question regarding Attorney General Gonzales. He was in favor of wasting time to attack and embarrass a Democratic President, yet his attitude towards a Republican Attorney General who has unapologetically lied to Congress is the exact opposite.
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