Some days the stories just write themselves. The Hill (h/t Glenn Greenwald via Twitter):
The retirement of Independent Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman will remove from Capitol Hill a powerful proponent for robust Pentagon spending and weapons programs.I'll stop the blurb here, but there's much more. It's euphemism city in those quotes — "robust Pentagon spending", "friend of Defense contractors", "looking for champions in the Senate". That's cash money he's talking about. Later in the article, for example, we learn how Lieberman "cemented his favorable reputation with defense firms" — presumably by piling truckloads of wet tax dollars around the base of it and letting the mess cure for 12 hours.
Lieberman, a hawk on foreign policy, has long been considered a friend of defense contractors, both in Connecticut and across the country. With his retirement still two years away, the senator will still have a chance to shape a number of critical foreign-policy debates, including over withdrawal from Afghanistan, analysts say.
“He is a giant of the Senate, to me just as important on national security as [Sen. Edward] Kennedy [D-Mass.] was on health or [Sen. Bill] Bradley [D-N.J.] on finance or [Sen. Pete] Domenici [R-N.M.] on the deficit,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a national security analyst at the Brookings Institution. “In that regard he is very, very hard to replace. With luck we will be through the worst of the Afghanistan experience before he leaves, but other challenges where his wise counsel would help the nation surely loom ahead.”
The Democrat-turned-Independent’s retirement announcement comes about one year after another powerful Connecticut senator, Chris Dodd (D), announced he would leave the chamber. Those departures will leave some defense firms looking for new champions in the Senate.
By the way, notice all those quotes from Michael O'Hanlon? He's this guy.
Consider this article the first salvo in the Lieberman retirement party, and I don't mean the public one. The piece makes it clear that the industry knows it needs to leverage Lieberman's remaining Senate time to "shape a number of critical foreign-policy debates." And it's also clear in the article that Joe is offering that leverage and then some. In other words, "my agent will have lunch with your agent." Joe plans a sprint, and the industry plans to cheer, heartily.
And afterward? My guess is he'll open up a national security branch of the family business.
Retainers, the both of them.
GP
