JUST TELL ME WHO YOU WANT ME TO BE:

Lieberman Denies Shift On Race Policy (DAVID LIGHTMAN, January 20 2003, Hartford Courant )

As Joe Lieberman's 2004 presidential campaign begins its first big road trip today, he is already on the defensive over seemingly conflicting views on affirmative action.

And to add even more tension, he is heading to Michigan, ground zero in that controversy.

Lieberman told a national television audience Sunday that he supports the University of Michigan admissions system, which uses racial preferences, and said President Bush's opposition was flatly "wrong" and "divisive."

But nearly eight years ago, as Democrats struggled to keep their historic backing of affirmative action from becoming a serious political liability and as California considered banning preferences at state-funded institutions, Lieberman sounded a different tone.

"You can't defend policies that are based on group preferences as opposed to individual opportunities," he said in 1995 as he raised serious questions about affirmative action. [...]

On March 9, 1995, before an audience of national reporters, Lieberman said of group policies: "When we have such policies, we have the effect of breaking some of those ties in civil society that have held us together because [the affirmative action policies] are patently unfair."

Lieberman continued: "Those who are the victims of [group preferences] and lose out when choices are made based on group preferences as opposed to individual ability naturally become disaffected from the process."

Asked that day about the California initiative, Lieberman said: "Looking at the wording of the Civil Rights Initiative in California, I can't see how I could be opposed to it," he said, "because it basically is a statement of American values ..."

The problem for Mr. Lieberman is that it is not a statement of Democrat values. Luckily, the Good Senator has never been reluctant to cut his conscience to fit the year's fashions. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 21, 2003 8:33 PM