Return to Transcripts main page

Greenfield at Large

A Conversation With Joseph Lieberman

Aired August 31, 2001 - 22:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JEFF GREENFIELD, HOST: Tonight, a one-on-one conversation with one of the leading figures in the Democratic Party, a U.S. Senator who has challenged many of his party's key ideas, who made history as Al Gore's running mate last year, and who was on the A-list of possible presidential nominees the next time out. A one-on-one conversation with Senator Joe Lieberman, tonight on GREENFIELD AT LARGE.

I think it was novelist Kurt Vonnegut who said that sooner or later, you realize that the world is being run by the people you that went to school with. If you happen to have gone to a place like Yale Law School, that happens a lot. Back in the spring of 1992, all three of the Democratic candidates for president, Jerry Brown, Paul Tsongas, Bill Clinton, were graduates of Yale Law. Now, not everybody from there goes into politics. At least one classmate of Joe Lieberman's winds up covering politics for CNN, which is a roundabout way of saying that yes, Senator Lieberman and I were classmates, and if he thinks that means I intend to pitch softballs for the next half hour, he is not nearly as smart as I remember.

More to point. Senator Lieberman's taste for the give-and-take of politics was acquired a good, long time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): Joseph Lieberman was bitten by the political bug early in life. Even before he got his law degree from Yale, he published a book, a biography of John Bailey, the legendary Democratic leader, or boss, from Connecticut.

Three years after his law school graduation, he was a state senator. A young Yale law student named Bill Clinton campaigned for him. In 1982, he was elected attorney general of Connecticut.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE LIEBERMAN, ATTORNEY GENERAL, CONNECTICUT: And the record shows that my opponent has missed more than 300 votes since 1981.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: In 1988, Lieberman won a U.S. Senate seat, narrowly defeating three-term incumbent, Lowell Weicker. He quickly developed a reputation as an independent Democrat. He was one of the first northern Democrats to embrace the Democratic Leadership Council, a group working to pull the party toward the political center. He was an early, frequent critic of sex and violence in mass entertainment.

LIEBERMAN: We're talking about video games that too often glorify violence and teach children to enjoy inflicting the most gruesome forms of cruelty imaginable.

GREENFIELD: He was also the first non-Southern senator to endorse Bill Clinton for president in 1992.

LIEBERMAN: Bill Clinton of Arkansas.

(APPLAUSE)

GREENFIELD: But six years later when Clinton acknowledged he had been involved with Monica Lewinsky...

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not...

GREENFIELD: And had lied about it...

CLINTON: In fact, it was wrong.

GREENFIELD: Lieberman was also the first Democrat to take to the Senate floor with strong words of criticism.

LIEBERMAN: It is immoral, and it is harmful, for it sends a message of what is acceptable behavior to the larger American family.

GREENFIELD: That stand was one reason why Al Gore chose Lieberman as his running mate last year. the first Jew ever to be in a major party's national ticket.

LIEBERMAN: Is America a great country or what?

(APPLAUSE)

GREENFIELD: Throughout the campaign, Lieberman spoke openly of his faith.

LIEBERMAN: Dear Lord, maker of all miracles, I thank you for bringing me to this extraordinary moment in my life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GREENFIELD: Lieberman obviously was not elected vice president, but he was returned to the United States Senate from Connecticut by a landslide, and remains on the A list, as I said, of potential presidential nominees. And I'm pleased to welcome, as our only guest for this half hour, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, who joins us from Washington. Thank you for you being with us, Senator.

LIEBERMAN: Thank you, Jeff. Thank you for that trip down memory lane.

GREENFIELD: Well, one of the trips I do want to take down memory lane has to do with last November. I want to talk about politics of what happened, of what might happen. But as a purely human interest question, in the middle of the World Series, 1975, that great game six, Red Sox - Reds. Pete Rose came up in the late innings and said to Carlton Fisk, "Isn't this terrific?" And I'm wondering, even in the midst of this chaos, did you ever get enough perspective to look up, to say to your wife, Hadassah, to Al Gore, isn't this the most astonishing political event, like, ever?

LIEBERMAN: In the postelection period, absolutely did. I mean, it was just hard to believe, and every now and then, though we -- let me go back and just set the context. I get chosen early in August to run as the vice-presidential candidate. The next three months are a kind of magical mystery tour, in the old Beatles phrase. Very exciting, frenetic, sleeping four or five hours a night, sleeping on the plane, very exciting. Come to that election day, and all the ups and downs that night that have been recorded so brilliantly by yourself -- and then, it stops. And we go back to Washington. Life assumes a certain normalcy. I mean, after all, I'm getting a little more sleep, I'm seeing my family.

But every day we lived through these twists and turns that, when you step back and looked at it, you said, this is unbelievable. And it's important, I can't believe I'm here, something very important is on the line, which is the integrity of an American national election, so we've got to stick with it. But it was a journey. An unbelievable journey.

GREENFIELD: When it finally did end, your party began a debate which in some sense, is still going on. On the one hand, that the incumbent President Clinton was the albatross around Al Gore's neck, and yours. On the other hand, if only Al Gore and you had asked him to campaign more, you guys might have won. Or, see -- that both things were true. Did you ever come to a conclusion in your own mind about that particular question?

LIEBERMAN: Well, I suppose there's a little bit of truth about both of them. As my hindsight, there's no question that President Clinton's personal problems were in people's minds, and it was part of the emotion and the context of the 2000 election. On the other hand, those who were truly upset about what he had done had made up their minds already, and -- I don't think it would have hurt if he had been out there campaigning more. He was campaigning.

We have a longtime relationship, going way back to, as you pointed out, the time he helped me run for state senator, 1970, and I kept in touch with him during the fall, during the campaign. I remember one Saturday night I called him, and he called me back, and he was in Seattle, and he had just completed his sixth campaign event of the day. So it's not as if he was being held hostage somewhere. He was out campaigning, and whenever he was, he was campaigning for us.

GREENFIELD: There's one other question about the election that I -- it's uncomfortable, but I think I have to put it on the table. Given the fact that you folks were shut out in the South, assuming that Florida did go for George Bush, that this is to tell you that Al Gore did no better, even though he was a son of Tennessee, than Michael Dukakis or Walter Mondale. I actually heard some folks, some Jewish voters who say, do you think it may have been because some folks in some parts of the country really weren't ready to vote for a Jew as one of the two leading candidates? Do you have any feeling that that played any role in what happened?

LIEBERMAN: I have every feeling that that played no role in what happened. In fact, one of my great regrets is that -- about last year is that I did not get a chance to spend more time in the South, because whenever I went, the reaction was very warm, very accepting. Very, very positive. There were no signs of any religious bigotry that I saw in south or for that matter anywhere else. And I didn't spend more time in the South, or for that matter, anywhere else. And I didn't spend more time in the South because I'm afraid the polling showed that most of the states there were out of reach, and so it was such a close election, nationally, that the campaign was sending me to battleground states where we either had a chance to win or had a win, like Oregon, Washington State, Wisconsin, Michigan, et cetera, et cetera.

So I just give a reflection. Early on in the campaign, probably the first week after I was selected, Al Gore and I went to Atlanta for a rally. But before we met with the five Southern Democratic governors -- and I'll never forget, one of them said, "Mr. Vice President, I just want you to know that your selection of Senator Lieberman as your running mate is playing very well in the Bible Belt." I think that said a lot about America, and I appreciated it.

GREENFIELD: All right. Well, we're going to take a break. When we come back, we're going to broaden this out to talk about the politics -- not just of what happened last year, but what might happen this year. And later, a portrait from Lieberman's younger days that is not what it seems, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIEBERMAN: We preserve and protect our system of justice best when we accept its judgments that we disagree with most. This election is over. And I congratulate Governor Bush and Secretary Cheney and wish them well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: Senator Joe Lieberman on the floor of the U.S. Senate, acknowledging the election of Bush and Cheney. Senator Lieberman is with us tonight as our only guest.

When we think back to what happened last year and move away from the personal, I remember in the spring of 2000, many Democrats -- I remember specifically Gray Davis -- saying that Bush was going to be severely vulnerable on the issues of gun control and the environment. That might have been true in California.

But you look to states like West Virginia, Missouri, Kentucky, Al Gore's Tennessee, did those issues actually wind up hurting the Democratic ticket in that more conservative, male Democrats felt that gun control was not their issue, that the environment might have been costing them jobs? Did you guys get hurt on those issues?

LIEBERMAN: Let me divide those -- that question in two, Jeff, because I think there are different answers on each of the issues. Environmental protection may have been part of the reason why our ticket didn't carry West Virginia and lost it quite substantially, because of the prominence of the coal industry there in West Virginia, and the perception that Al Gore and I were so focused on combating air pollution, et cetera, et cetera.

But throughout America, I am convinced that our position on environmental protection as compared to Bush-Cheney position was really the majority position, and I think there is a broad national consensus in this country in favor of protecting our natural resources and protecting us, people, from damage to our health and safety as a result of pollution in the air, water, et cetera, et cetera, so I think that was a cutting edge, important issue that is part of the reason -- if I can put it this way -- why Al Gore and I won the popular vote.

Gun control is probably something different, though, there, too, that issue cuts differently in different sections of the country, but perhaps less clearly on one side than environmental protection. And there is no question that there is a broad group of people in this country who do support reasonable control of access to guns, particularly to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and children.

GREENFIELD: My point, I guess, senator, is that I haven't heard a word from Democrats since this election on gun control. It was going to be a big issue in 2000, in the primaries, the fight between Bradley and Gore was for I think who was registering guns more quickly. Big silence right now, no?

LIEBERMAN: A relative silence, not a total silence. And I'll tell you, this probably has something to do with what the end of my answer, which was, very briefly, that the pro-gun, anti-gun control forces really got a lot of people in this country scared about what would happen if Al Gore was elected president, which was essentially that he -- if -- eventually wanted to take their guns away, and of course that's not true.

And I think it has had the effect of -- of making some Democrats worry about stepping forward on gun control. Actually, I have stepped forward with John McCain on a bipartisan bill to try to close the so- called gun show loophole, and it's a way to try to create a new middle ground here that recognizes that people have a right to own guns in this country, that the government should not interfere with that right, but that people have responsibilities too, and if you have violated the law, if you are -- you have the responsibility to keep guns away from kids, and that is -- and at a gun show, you ought not be able to buy a gun and not have your background checked just as you would if you go into a store and buy a gun, so.

GREENFIELD: More broadly, that raises another political point. People talk about the gender gap all the time, and women did support your ticket by 11 points. Men supported the Bush-Cheney ticket by 11 points. What is the Democrats' problem with men?

LIEBERMAN: Beats me, because I think that, you know, the Democratic approach, which is all about opportunity and all about keeping the economy growing and understanding after a long road the Democratic Party has gone down in modern times, over the last three or four decades, that government can't do it all, but government has to be involved if the economy is going to grow, if people are going to have opportunity to have a good job, et cetera, et cetera. And those ought to be gender-neutral issues.

GREENFIELD: So -- but there is a problem, if you just look at the vote, right?

LIEBERMAN: Yeah, there is, and some of it may have to do with gun control, some of it may have to do with defense and national security, although there again I thought that the Clinton-Gore record on national security was a very strong one, so somehow we have not been communicating.

It may have also have to do with an issue that does seem, as you look back to the vote last year, to have had a cutting edge effect, and that is values, a very broad, amorphous term, but it means a lot of things to a lot of different people, but do you have a sense of right and wrong? Are you prepared to stand and speak firmly about what's right, and honor those who do the right thing, and punish those who do the wrong thing? Maybe that's part of the gender gap.

I remain puzzled about it. Frankly, I even remain puzzled, although happily so, why we do so much better among women.

GREENFIELD: We're going to take another quick break and come back and ask Senator Lieberman about prospects present and future for his party, for this president, and perhaps for the next one.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GREENFIELD: We are back with Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. Senator, I'm not going insult your intelligence by asking if you're ready, you know, a year or two before the next cycle, whenever that is, to declare intentions, but when you make up your mind...

LIEBERMAN: I'm not going surprise you by declaring my intentions.

GREENFIELD: When you make up your mind, we can assume you will talk to your family and you will weigh the national interests. But on a more direct personal level, what is the calculus you are going to bring to that decision "do I go or not?"

LIEBERMAN: Oh, look, Jeff, as I have said, if Al Gore runs, I will not run. If he doesn't run, I will certainly look at it. And I think that I have got to ask myself the same question that a seasoned public servant told me I should ask myself when I first thought about running for the state Senate in New Haven, which was: Why do you want the job? What are you going to do if you get the job, and why do you think you are better prepared to do this job than the others who may be seeking it? So I think you've got to look into your own experience. Of course it's -- these are awesome questions, when you are talking about the presidency of the United States. But...

GREENFIELD: Is it fair to say that some of your supporters are saying to you, "Hey, Senator" -- or Joe if they've known you long enough -- "Gore would appreciate your loyalty. He had a shot, they had an eight-year great record, he's just not -- he doesn't know how -- he doesn't dance to the music right. Don't make your decision dependent whether Al Gore runs or not." But you flatly have said once again tonight, you will. You are not going run if he runs.

LIEBERMAN: You don't like the way Al dances?

GREENFIELD: It's a metaphor, Senator.

LIEBERMAN: No, I understand. No. I reached that decision early on, after last year's election was over. I'm very grateful for the opportunity Al gave me. He and I have been friends for a long time. He has earned the right to make the first decision about whether he will run or not.

GREENFIELD: There is a much less pleasant subject that is swirling around in Washington now. You have spoken for so long about values, about faith, partly because you want people to think well of public service.

When you watch the avalanche of stories about Congressman Condit, does it dishearten you? I mean, does it make you think you've got to push the stone up the hill that much harder to get people not to think cynically about politics, and politicians?

LIEBERMAN: It does. And you know, I appreciate your asking that question that way, Jeff, because I -- I think it is fair to say the people who feel worst about episodes like this, or those involving somebody in public service, are those who are also in public service. Because this is our this our life's work, and we are sincerely devoted to it. And we know how important, as part of the work, is the relationship of trust that ought to exist between the people and those who are privileged to govern. And when episodes like this occur, it undercuts that.

So yeah, you're absolutely right. But then, you hope and trust in the end that people understand that, you know, when you go into public service it doesn't mean you lose all the imperfections that are part of human nature and that most of the people involved in holding office are not touched by this kind of scandal or questionable behavior. And you go on.

GREENFIELD: We're down to our last minute or so. You've been in politics for a long time, and you were thinking about it probably for longer than that. But over this long career, what would you say you believed as a young Democrat that you no longer believe as a not- quite-so- young Democrat? In other words, where have you seen the biggest change in your own thinking, either on policy or process or whatever? LIEBERMAN: Wow, that's big one.

GREENFIELD: I know.

LIEBERMAN: I mean, some things -- to answer quickly -- some things don't change, like the general sense that what drives America is opportunity, that it's all about opportunity for everybody who is an American, and it's opportunity, if I can put this way, based on divinity.

Those early -- that first paragraph of Declaration, that we have these rights to life, liberty and property, and they were -- and the pursuit of happiness, excuse me -- that they were endowed by our Creator. But what's changed, I suppose, my sense of the role of government.

I think in the '60s, when you and I were at law school, there was a sense that there was nothing government couldn't do to solve peoples' problems. I think one of the reactions to that was a Republican reaction which was that you know, government shouldn't do anything, that the people should take care of themselves. Government should be minimalized. And we hear it today in George Bush talking about the fact that he pushed his tax program too much -- more than we could afford -- through Congress to put Congress in a fiscal strait jacket. The point is...

GREENFIELD: Senator, before you get into that speech, I have to tell you that time is up. We can just take your answer that maybe you are a little more skeptical about the range of government than you were.

LIEBERMAN: I'll just say in one sentence that I have never been anti-government, but because government still has a limited but active role in making us a better society. That hasn't changed.

GREENFIELD: Having put words in your mouth that I didn't mean to, my thanks to you, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut for being with us. And when we come back picture that really may not be worth a thousand words after all.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GREENFIELD: And another thing. When Senator Lieberman was named as Al Gore's running mate last year, I had the same thought any journalist would have had. What do I have on this guy? Then I remembered. This picture from a day in New Haven 35 years ago. The guy in the horn-rimmed glasses, mouth open of course, that's me. And that is, yes, Joe Lieberman setting fire to something. But what? His draft card? A flag? No. ] This was the conclusion of a lighthearted demonstration on Columbus Day, 1966, to protest Yale's acquisition of a map that purported to show that Vikings had beaten Columbus to the New World. As an act of solidarity with Columbus, we charged the so-called Vinland Map was a forgery, and we burned a replica of the map. Now, here's what's so interesting. First, I showed this picture last fall on CNN, yet in November the Gore-Lieberman ticket carried the Scandinavian-rich states of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Clearly, no political harm done. Second, as it turned out, a few years later it was discovered that this Vinland Map was most likely a forgery. If Lieberman wants to prove he is indeed a man ahead of his time, this picture could be his single-most powerful argument.

I'm Jeff Greenfield. On Monday, another well-known graduate of Yale with a different political viewpoint. We go one-on-one with William F. Buckley Jr. "SPORTS TONIGHT" is next.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com