Joe "Capo" Liebermann
I just heard Sen. Lieberman say he will join the Republican filibuster of the health care bill if it includes a public option. Of course, any bill that includes a mandate to have insurance, without including a public option, would enrich the insurance industry and have no effective controls on rising health care premiums. But that's what Joe wants, because that's what his masters want -- the big insurance companies based in Connecticut.
Given the self-serving nature of Joe's position over a life-and-death issue, and his complete defection from the interests of the people of CT and the US, what came to mind for me, a Jew raised with images of the holocaust, were the capos, the Jews who worked for their Nazi captors in the concentration camps who helped to beat, starve, torture and kill their fellow Jews.
Sure, Joe may believe that his political survival is at stake. The capos believed they were acting to ensure their own survival, too. But Joe, this isn't life or death for you, it's just politics. That makes you worse than a capo, and it does an injustice to the memory of capos to compare them with Joe Lieberman.
Call Senator Lieberman, and call him out. Call him an insurance company capo, and when you have his attention, demand that he allow a health care reform bill with a public option to come up for a vote. You can contact him online -- http://lieberman.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm?regarding=issue
