Rest in Peace: Senator Joe Lieberman
Joe Lieberman was a lawyer and a former United States Senator from Connecticut, as well as the state’s Attorney General. He was the Democratic Party’s nominee for Vice President in 2000.
[Editor’s Note: Joe Lieberman’s life beyond his political career was an inspiration to millions of Americans who believed that tradition was the way to live in the future. I wrote an op-ed for Newsweek about Senator Lieberman and what we can learn about his religious observance.]
“My Way” Joe’s Way
Max Raskin: I heard at the recent Commentary magazine roast of Rabbi Meir Soloveitchik, you sung “Hello Solly.” On an average day what kind of music do you listen to?
Joe Lieberman: It varies. So almost every day, except the for Shabbat because I can't turn it on, I begin the day with WQXR, New York Public Radio. Classical music. And we love it. I mean, it just fills the house. My tastes otherwise are eclectic.
I'm an incorrigible Frank Sinatra fan. I love Broadway show music.
MR: Do you have a favorite Sinatra tune?
JL: Well, everybody loves “My Way.”
It became the theme song in my campaign the first time I ran for the senate. Happened sort of accidentally where I attended an Italian street festival in New Haven. The orchestra was performing on Saturday night, and I remember the band leader was a man named Vinnie Carr. Vinnie Carr was not his real name, he had a very Italian given name, but when he was growing up, they thought he should sound Irish. So anyway, he introduced me. He was not neutral in my race, and he played “My Way,” and he said, “Why don't you sing a chorus?" And I did, and got a standing ovation so my staff said, “This is it. This is our campaign song.”
William F. Buckley’s Mechitza
MR: This was the race against [Lowell] Weicker?
JL: That was against Weicker, right.
MR: That was when Buckley endorses you, right?
JL: Right.
MR: Did you know him?
JL: I did. Bill Buckley graduated from Yale probably 14 years before I did in the early fifties. I graduated in the class of ‘64. But he had a lifetime devotion to the Yale Daily News where he had been editor. And I was editor in my senior year, and he just kept in touch. We began to correspond and then he lived in Stamford, Connecticut, which was my hometown. So over the years we'd keep in touch, and then he and his wife started asking me to come and visit and have dinner and I did. And they were great evenings, really like an old salon. Great conversation, spirited – a lot of different opinions, as you expect.
JL: And then, I hate to admit this – I do at some peril – we divided into rooms of men and women. And of course, the men smoked cigars and drank brandy. And the women talked and probably drank lighter drinks.
Anyway, Buckley calls me in 1988, the year I'm running against Senator Weicker. I sometimes try vainly to impersonate that wonderful voice. He said [impersonating Buckley], "Joe, I'm thinking of endorsing you. Do you think it would help?" I said, "Well, Bill, I got to think about that." Then he said, "You know how much I like you, and respect you, but please understand that if I endorse you, it's because I despise Lowell Weicker." Weicker had been a nemesis to Ronald Reagan, who was Buckley's hero, and in some ways the realization of his work.
So I said, "You know, I think it would help me, let me think about it." Weicker had this tradition of being an idiosyncratic anti-Republican Republican. When it came to election time, he turned to the Republicans and said, "I know I'm not your favorite, but that guy that the Democrats are running against me is a communist. You want to support him?"
Buckley gave me – to use a term from our shared religious orientation – and I said this to him, he gave me a hashgacha. He said to Republicans, "This guy, Lieberman, okay, might not be your first choice, but he's kosher." Which is what the rabbis do.
I actually think it helped.
Joe Six-Pack
MR: So let me ask you a couple of silly questions.
JL: Oh, yeah, I'm great at silly questions.
MR: You were mentioning drinking brandy. What's your favorite thing to drink?
JL: It's a complicated answer. Maybe for a centrist, it’s what you’d expect. Generally speaking, in the evening, I have either a glass of wine or a bottle of beer. And my tastes are eclectic. White wine, but I like a lot of different kinds of beer.
MR: What kind of beer do you drink?
JL: My favorite is Sam Adams. I'm going through a six pack of Sam Adams Winter Lager right now that is perfect.
However, I will say in full disclosure that on the day of rest ordained by God, no less, at synagogue, I have a shot or two, after services, of single malt scotch or bourbon. That's it.
MR: What kind of scotch?
JL: Glenfiddich is good. I like some of those…
MR: Did you drink Slivovitz?
JL: Every now and then, but I find it too strong and not very tasty. A lot like a harsh scotch, if you will, but worse than that. It's like old fashion whiskey, you know?
MR: Do you have a favorite niggun or song at shul? Do you sing along to anything?
JL: I sing along a lot. First off, I like to sing; the Jewish liturgy is full of evocations to sing to the Lord, as this is something that befits our Creator, and maybe enriches our own religious experience. I particularly like good Friday night praying.
MR: Do you sing “Eshes Chayil” to your wife?
JL: I do, I do. And we're quite traditional about Friday night rituals at the table. It's a little funny of us, and I don't know anybody else who does this, but my wife and I decided that the tune that is the traditional tune for “Eshet Chayil,” was repetitive, and Hadassah said there was only so much praise she could take in one dose. So we sing the first stanza and the last stanza. The song is the tribute that the man offers the woman, his wife, as a woman of valor, thanking her for all that she's meant to him in the preceding week and longer than that.
MR: I'm going to have to think how I should sing to Raina, because she's definitely a woman of valor.
JL: Yeah, she is. Her family has a great tradition, which is I don't think they sing “Eshet Chayil,” but at that point in the service, at the table, the children and Ken say to Amy what specific thing or things she did during the week that they're extremely grateful for. It's quite touching really.
Netflix and Jog
MR: Do you wear cologne?
JL: Not every day, but if I'm getting dressed to go out.
MR: What kind do you wear?
JL: I have no lasting loyalty here. I know that I'm working my way through a box of small travel-size Calvin Klein cologne.
MR: What about exercise? What do you do for exercise?
JL: I'm a big believer in exercise. For years, I jogged every day three or four miles.
MR: Would you listen to music?
JL: No, I usually jog with somebody. I started out jogging with my doctor in New Haven. This is a funny story. He was also my neighbor and my friend. A long time ago, probably the seventies, I went for my annual physical, and he said, "You're in good shape, but you're a little overweight and you're not exercising enough. You should do something like jog every morning." And I said to the late, wonderful Mark Schwartz – I said, "Mark…If I'm going to jog, you're going to jog with me."
"Okay." So we started jogging.
But my wife came along and broke up that jogging relationship because she liked to jog too.
MR: When did you jog until?
JL: Oh, it was sort of the decade of the 2000s where my knees began to give. I tried everything and then I walked and finally I had knee replacement surgery, both knees, so I don't jog anymore, but I walk or go on a treadmill and do other exercises every morning. And I try to do it in the afternoon, frankly, since the pandemic. And it's really important to me.
MR: How early do you wake up in the morning?
JL: 6:00, 6:30.
MR: Do you watch TV?
JL: Yeah, too much since the pandemic and since cable news has become so repulsively opinionated and attack-counter attack that you don't get news anymore. You watch one of the shows and you've done it. So, we turn to Netflix or Amazon Prime or we turn it off and we read a book.
MR: What’s “a book”?
JL: Well, don't feel too badly because most of my books I read on my iPad.
MR: What are you watching right now on Netflix or Amazon?
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