Former senator Joseph Lieberman passed away on Wednesday at the age of 82. Yesterday, a friend and colleague who knew him well said that, upon hearing the news that the senator had died—following complications from a fall—he was stunned and bereft. He also remarked on how sad he was that he didn’t have a last conversation with him.
By sheer coincidence, I did. I had a long talk with him on Monday. He sounded at peace. He was happy. He was engaging. And while there were some issues of the day we talked about (congressional inaction, Ukraine, the threat of Donald Trump), the majority of the call was spent reflecting on how happy and grateful he was about all things in his life. At one point, he told me, “Mark, I have to be one of the luckiest guys on the planet.”
I’ve spent almost my entire adulthood, four decades, working in politics. I’ve had the great fortune to be employed by an incredible cast of characters on both sides of the aisle, including presidents, governors, senators, and members of Congress. And I say this without equivocation: Joe Lieberman was the best of them. And there’s not a close second.
Lieberman with his wife Hadassah and Vice President Al Gore in the Old Senate Chamber.Scott J. Ferrell/Getty Images.
Everything that is good about humanity and politics Joe Lieberman beamed like a lighthouse. He was generous, kind, smart, spiritual, and thoughtful. And he extended grace to everyone. I never heard him say an unkind word about a soul. He was the sort of man who would take as much time asking an office assistant about their wellbeing, as he did the office assistant’s boss, a colleague, or a US senator.
He lived the motto “Country Over Party.” And if not for the idea leaking prematurely to the press, Lieberman might have been the vice presidential nominee of both parties, for Al Gore in 2000 and John McCain in 2008. (Instead, an unpolished Alaskan politician named Sarah Palin became McCain’s running mate–and the rest is history.)
Connecticut’s Joe Lieberman was a radical centrist, and angered many Democrats by running for the Senate (and winning!) as an independent (after losing a democratic primary); by allying himself strongly with McCain; and by voting for the Iraq War and against the Affordable Care Act. But on issues like abortion, the environment and economic policy, Lieberman was always a solid Democratic vote.
For those Democrats now unwilling to bestow the presumption of grace, even upon his death, I say there is not a friend he had or a position he took that was not 100 percent from his heart. If he took a stance, he did so because he believed it was the right thing to do for the country, not because it benefited him politically or financially.
There are also those who are not altogether mournful of his loss because they say it means that No Labels, the organization he cocreated with the mission of trying to heal the harsh partisanship in our country, will be less likely to run a candidate that will assist Trump. As I’ve written in this space before, that was never going to happen–because of Joe Lieberman. He said over and over again, unequivocally, that the whole reason No Labels was considering an independent candidate was to ensure Trump would not be re-elected. A “Break Glass in Case of Emergency” plan. Which is why No Labels has been seeking to put a Republican at the top of the ticket. To draw votes away from Trump, not Biden. And whatever you think of his politics, Lieberman was, rather Biblically, a man of his word. Despite that, many observers keep misleading people into believing the effort was actually a Trojan Horse for Trump. Which, of course, has kept potential candidates away from the initiative.