LiebermanLast fall, nobody cared more about the troops than Joe Lieberman:

I know as well as anyone we have made a lot of mistakes in Iraq and we have suffered more casualties than we should have. Don’t think for a minute I do not grieve for every casualty of this war.

In fact, as someone who voted for the war, I feel a heavy responsibility to try to end it as quickly and successfully as possible.

I have been to the front lines four times. I have been to Walter Reed and visited the brave men and women who have suffered awful injuries and sacrificed for their country the way Max Cleland did. I have visited with the families who have been devastated by the death of a son or daughter, a husband or a wife.

The last thing I want to do is needlessly add to that kind of heartbreak. I want to get our troops home as fast as anyone, probably more than most, and as I have repeatedly said, I am against an open-ended commitment.

And how is Joe expressing his grief these days? Per TParty at MLN:20070706funeral4gallerydb1.jpg

Two weeks ago, on June 25th, U.S. Army Pfc. Andre Craig Jr. of New Haven was killed in Baghdad as the Humvee he was riding in was hit by an improvised explosive device, leaving behind a wife and a six-month old daughter who he had met for the first - and last - time just this past May.

The funeral was yesterday. And Sen. Lieberman, he who "grieves for every casualty of this war" so much that he is doing everything in his power to keep our soldiers in harm's way, wasn't there:

Among those not in attendance was U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman. He sent a representative in his place. That angered some of the mourners like the Rev. Anthony Brown Sr., as well as the curious who gathered in the small park across the street just in front of Dwight Elementary School.

"Sen. Lieberman voted for the war. But he wasn't here to pay his respects to a young man who lost his life," Brown said. "Lieberman should be ashamed of himself. But that's what politicians do. They send someone else to do the job. They send someone else's kids to die for their wars."

Joe now seems to be developing his foriegn policy based on what will piss off the maximum number of his critics. He's an angry, bitter little man who has no problem promoting mo' war forevah and lying furiously about the success of the "surge" just to salve his own ego. There are consequences, though, to endless war and they're no fun to clean up. Joe seems no more eager to face those consequences than he is in offering up his own kids to fight in Iraq. I guess the families of the fallen should just be happy that Joe cares so very much and leave it at that.

Photo by Autumn Pinette/Connecticut Post)