I remember exactly when Joe Lieberman became my friend — after he scolded me for not heeding the commands of my Jewish mother.
In 2017, I was working on a series of articles for Salon about "centrism," a once-dominant but rapidly fading force in American political life. That May I had interviewed two of the most most prominent remaining centrists, both of whom had to some degree become outcasts from their own political parties. One was Lieberman, a longtime Democratic senator from Connecticut known for his political independence. The other was his good friend Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey. Whitman asked me to extend her greetings to Lieberman, and of course I did so. But I forgot to mention my own mother, a big fan of Lieberman ever since he became Al Gore's running mate in 2000, who had also told me she was eager to express her admiration.
