Lieberman thanks RJC, praises Bush

U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman thanked the Republican Jewish Coalition for its support and praised President Bush’s wartime leadership. “Many of you in this room stood with me last year through the long journey up a winding road that was my 2006 re-election campaign,” Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Wednesday in remarks prepared for an RJC leadership meeting. He went to say, “Your nonpartisanship in my race is a model for what our politics should be.” Lieberman lost the Democratic primary in Connecticut last year because of his support for the Iraq war, and subsequently ran as an independent with tacit White House and Republican support. “It is to the everlasting credit of President Bush that in the war against Islamist extremism, he has shown the courage and steadfastness to stand against the political passions of the moment,” Lieberman said.Lieberman chided anti-war Democrats in Congress who “delude themselves if they think they will not be held accountable for the bloody consequences of the retreat from Iraq they seek” and Republicans who “delude themselves if they think they will be helping either themselves, their party or their country if they now attempt to wash their hands of Iraq out of a sudden sense of political anxiety.” When Lieberman ran for vice president in 2000, the RJC sharply attacked him as soft on Israel’s enemies.