Joe? Holy Joe Lieberman? You are done.
I was pleased to pull the lever for you when you ran for the Senate. You did a fine job as the AG of Connecticut, and I thought you would do a good job in the Senate.
I started to get a little worried when you started your moralizing about video games. I got a little upset when I wrote to you to complain about it - I mean, here you are, a powerful Senator, and you are focusing on a topic that really should be the responsibility of parents - and I got a form letter back thanking me for my support. Clearly, your office was not registering the opinions of your constituents. I wasn't happy about it.
But I have to admit, I was a little proud (although also a little worried - it didn't seem like a good strategy) when Al Gore chose you as his running mate. I was proud that a fellow Connecticutian was going to be the first Jewish VP.
And then you gave up the fight. You and Al Gore were clearly the winners, and you just let it go.
And then you voted to give Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq.
And today, today you voted to confirm Alberto Gonzales. This is a man who boiled complex legal issues down to one sentence summaries so his benefactor didn't have to read too much. Because of Alberto Gonzalez, people who were mentally retarded, who were not given the best defense possible as is required by the law of this great country, and people who were truly repentent, were killed in the name of the State of Texas. This is a man who called the Geneva Conventions quaint. This is a man who drafted a legal memo that gave our military the okay to torture people.
I know you think of yourself as a moral man. But torture is immoral, full stop. There are no conditions under which torture is moral. It's immoral when Saddam Hussein engages in torture, and it's immoral when the United States engages in torture.
Today, you gave your full approval to torture. You condoned torture. That makes you morally depraved, as depraved as the people who raped prisoners with fluorescent lights, as depraved as the people who put naked men on dog leashes, and even as depraved as Saddam Hussein and his rape rooms.
You bring shame to the state of Connecticut. You bring shame to the Democratic party. But mostly, you bring shame to yourself. It doesn't matter how devoted a family man you are, or how devoutly you attend Temple and observe the Sabbath. You are no better than those who actually performed the acts at Abu Ghraib.
I cannot wait to work for the person who challenges you in the next election. If no one else will, I will. Because Connecticut deserves better than a torturer to represent us in the Senate.
May the spirits of those who have been tortured haunt you for the rest of your days.
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