Joe Lieberman: The Historic Choice

by Stephen Singular, Cherry Mosgrave, Paula Klaris

From Wikipedia: Joseph Isadore "Joe" Lieberman (born February 24, 1942) is the senior United States Senator from Connecticut. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was the party's nominee for Vice President in the 2000 election. Currently an independent, he remains closely affiliated with the party. ~~~ Born in Stamford, Connecticut, Lieberman is a graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School. He was elected as a "reform Democrat" in 1970 to the Connecticut Senate, where he served three terms as Majority Leader. After an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1980, he served as state Attorney General from 1983 to 1989. Lieberman defeated moderate Republican Lowell Weicker in 1988 to win election to the United States Senate and was re-elected in 1994 and 2000. In the 2000 United States presidential election, Lieberman was the Democratic nominee for Vice President, running with presidential nominee Al Gore, becoming the first Jewish candidate on a major American political party presidential ticket.[2] He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2004 presidential election. ~~~ Lieberman was born in Stamford, Connecticut, the son of Marcia (née Manger) and Henry Lieberman. His paternal grandparents emigrated from Poland and his maternal grandparents were from Austria.[8] He received an A.B. in both political science and economics from Yale University in 1964 and was the first member of his family to graduate from college. At Yale he was editor of the Yale Daily News and a member of the Elihu Club. He later attended Yale Law School, receiving his law degree in 1967. After graduation from law school, Lieberman worked as a lawyer for the New Haven-based law firm Wiggin & Dana LLP. ~~~ A spokesperson told The Hartford Courant in 1994 that Lieberman received an educational deferment from the Vietnam War draft when he was an undergraduate and law student from 1960 to 1967.

249 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 21, 2000

About the author

Stephen Singular is the author or co-author of 22 non-fiction books, many of them about high-profile criminal cases. He’s also written sports and business biographies and social commentary. Two of the books have been “New York Times” bestsellers.

His first book, Talked to Death, set the tone for his journalistic career. Published in 1987, it chronicled the assassination of a Denver Jewish talk show host, Alan Berg, by a group of neo-Nazis known as The Order. The book was nominated for a national award — the Edgar for true crime — and became the basis for the 1989 Oliver Stone film, “Talk Radio.” Talked to Death was translated into several languages and explored the timeless American themes of racism, class, violence, and religious intolerance.

Reviews

[Claw Machine · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is really a campaign biography, barely critical of Lieberman in most cases (though willing to admit he has a different appeal than traditional Democrats). It's written finely enough so I guess if you just wanted to know about Lieberman, the maybe next vice president of the US, it's fine. Unfortunately, that means its usefulness has passed since about 24 years ago; there's very little analysis, and very little new content that's interesting. You get a sense of who Joe was, sure, and a few key decisions he made, but there's very little you couldn't find elsewhere. It's a fine enough basic overview but unfortunately, there's not much else written about Joe except for this, a short, brief, overly basic overview. Better than the ChatGPT crap that came out after he died though.

Also, this book just has one chapter where they tell you what Judaism is, and list a bunch of Jewish traditions. Explaining which ones he followed and his relationship to his faith was good, but literally just, "this is what keeping Kosher is, this is what Rosh Hashanah is," was not particularly helpful towards understanding the subject.

Overall, a pretty mediocre portrait of him, not super useful to those modern day researchers seeking to understand the guy who killed the public option. Fine enough I suppose if you're living in October of 2000 though.

[Matt Kratz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this. I learned a lot about the man!