Joe Lieberman says either Democrats fall in line behind George W. Bush or else he’s voting for John McCain:

“I’m open to supporting a Democrat, Republican, or even an Independent if there’s a strong one,” the U.S. Senator from Connecticut told “Fox News Sunday.” . . .

Asked about the current field of Democrat contenders for the presidency, all of whom have strong opposition to Bush’s Iraq policy, Lieberman said, “You make a decision based on a whole range of issues. But obviously, the positions that some candidates have taken in Iraq troubles me. Obviously, I will be looking at what positions they take in the larger war against Islamist terrorism.”

Do I need to go drag up all the times back in 2006 when Lieberman and his supporters urged Democrats not to make too big a deal out of disagreements on Iraq? I don’t necessarily think Lieberman is wrong about this. If I were in the Bush/Cheney/McCain Crazy Zone I’m not sure I could stomach voting for a reasonable candidate either.

In case you were wondering, here’s the Spartacist take on the Iranian nuclear issue:

Photo by Whiskeygonebad

More nuanced ideas are also available this fine weekend. Laura Secor’s excellent look at the Iranian political scene makes several points explicitly and I’d recommend you read the article yourself though you can also find Ogged’s take here. A couple of additional points are made implicitly by the article. One is simply that Iranian politics is complicated. It’s complicated institutionally, it’s complicated ideologically, and it’s complicated in terms of personalities and factions. The other point is that while you’d certainly rather live in a liberal democracy than under the Iranian political system, this is no kind of totalitarianism and the many people throwing that word around are just warmongering ignorantly.

The other must-read, via David Kurtz, is The Observer‘s look at the actual state of the Iranian nuclear program. It’s not so hot. Building nuclear bombs is hard. The Iranians don’t have access to the method materials, nor is the program funded as heavily as it might be. Right now, they aren’t making very much progress.

Poor Dick Cheney can hardly restrain himself:

Viewed from afar, the stuff inside Hagel looks like the stuff that makes Republican presidential candidates. He is a third-generation party member who grew up idolizing Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower. He says he was the only student in his Roman Catholic high school to support Richard Nixon over John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election—and when he cast his first vote, an absentee ballot from Vietnam, it was for Nixon’s winning ticket in 1968. His conservative credentials are impeccable: according to Congressional Quarterly, he voted with the White House more times in 2006 than any other senator. He is manly, Middle American—and when he talks about military matters, he exudes the cool confidence of a warrior-statesman who knows that war is hell.

But Hagel, who as of late last week was in the final stages of weighing a presidential run, is never mentioned in the top tier of Republican candidates for one, simple reason: since the initial buildup to the war in Iraq, he has assailed the Bush administration’s policy—in sharp words, in constant refrain and, most unforgivably, in public. His outburst last week was the culmination of a four-year campaign to raise public outrage about a war he’s always considered disastrous. His stance has earned him the enmity of the White House. Asked about Hagel last week in an interview with NEWSWEEK, Vice President Dick Cheney said: “I believe firmly in Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment: THOU SHALT NOT SPEAK ILL OF A FELLOW REPUBLICAN. But it’s very hard sometimes to adhere to that where Chuck Hagel is involved.”

Incidentally, I’ve always wondered did even Ronald Reagan adhere to this principle? What was happening during the ’76 primary? Isaac Chotiner raises the relevant point about Cheney: There doesn’t seem to be anyone in the White House powerful enough to prevent him from mouthing off in weird ways.