Reply #4: Lieberman knew about the pending arrests on Thursday. [View All]

[leveymg]

He and the GOP are playing this for political advantage. Boo, Joe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,20090475-5006506,00.html

SNIP

But a senior White House official said that the British government had not launched its raid until well after Mr Cheney held a highly unusual conference call with reporters to attack the Democrats as weak against terrorism. An aide to Senator Lieberman, who would have been one of the first Democrats to hear of the plot because he is the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said the lawmaker first heard of it on Thursday. On Thursday, Mr Cheney had suggested that Democrats believe "that somehow we can retreat behind our oceans and not be actively engaged in this conflict and be safe here at home, which clearly we know we won't, we can't, be," he said.

While some Democrats have opposed some steps in the war on terrorism, and more and more are calling for a withdrawal from Iraq, no major figures in the party have called for a wholesale retreat in the broader conflict. But Mr Bush's Republicans hoped the raid would yield political gains.

"I'd rather be talking about this than all of the other things that Congress hasn't done well," one Republican congressional aide said on condition of anonymity because of possible reprisals. "Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big," said another White House official, who also spoke on condition of not being named, adding that some Democratic candidates won't "look as appealing" under the circumstances.