In any event, though Lieberman did not move one inch rightward, we of the Connecticut Right made common cause with him in the defeat of Weicker. And, two terms later, he was designated by candidate Al Gore as running mate in the race against George Bush, which happily Lieberman lost. However, his early backing of the Iraq war, along with such as John Kerry and Al Gore, was a hard commitment, and now he suffers for it. The hard-leftist gang, dominated by George Soros and Barbra Streisand, came up with a peachy young man in Greenwich who is rich and handsome and seeks to replace Lieberman in the Senate.

Guarding against the possibility that Ned Lamont would win the primary, Joe Lieberman decided over the weekend to begin amassing the support he would need to run as an independent (as Weicker had done when he ran for governor in 1990). It is, in Connecticut as elsewhere, the ideological minorities that are best represented in primary contests, and Lieberman is willing to give up his seat but only in a contest in which all Democrats figure. Lieberman will probably win the primary, but if not, he will probably go on to win as an independent.

But the narrative returns to the 50th anniversary dinner, at which Lieberman and I were seated at the same table. In the days that followed, the Democratic blogosphere gave Lieberman hell for showing up at my party, reading into his presence there ideological courtship, never mind that Lieberman has been a stalwart Democratic 95 percent of his times at bat.

But in looking into Lieberman's vulnerabilities, I discovered in Wikipedia this item: "Following his 2005 State of the Union address, President Bush, after shaking lawmakers' hands, abruptly grasped Lieberman's head in both hands and kissed him on the cheek. At first, Lieberman's staff humorously referred to the embrace as 'some kind of Yale thing.'

"However, as political backlash against the peck arose, Lamont's supporters have appropriated the incident into a campaign button: 'The Kiss: Too Close for Comfort.' Lieberman has since denied the kiss ever took place. 'I don't think he kissed me. He learned over and gave me a hug and said, 'Thank you for being a patriotic American,' Lieberman told Time magazine."

So I said to myself, thinking back on our celebration in October, "Thank God I didn't kiss Joe!"

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