Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson was every Cold War Republican's favorite Democrat. Jackson managed to get the One Great Issue of the day - the struggle against the Soviets - right, while being a prominent member of the party that got it catastrophically wrong. It's primarily for this reason that Sen. Joseph Lieberman has been compared to him. Even as the names have changed (well, most of the names, anyway), and his party gets this war wrong, too, Sen. Lieberman, almost alone has been reliable on the war.
The problem is, Jackson't legacy was decidedly two-sided. His common sense seemed to stop at the water's edge, especially where oil was concerned. Jackson spent most of the 1970s helping to ensure gas lines, odd-even license plate days, and the election of Ronald Reagan. Jackson introduced the price-control legislation in 1973, and then in 1975, when President Ford tried to get it repealed, his response, according to David Frum in The 70s:
By proposing decontrol, Jackson said, Ford was "working hand in hand with the major oil companies to push the price of oil up and up and up."
And the New York Times reported that in April 1979, Scoop was there to oppose Jimmy Carter's(!) Nixon-in-China moment, when he finally phased out controls.
Turns out Joe Lieberman shares this - trait - with Jackson. Lieberman has co-sponsored no fewers than four windfall profits bills (SR 1631, S Amdt 451, S Amdt 2587, and S Amdt 2626), and one price control bill (S Amdt 2612, proposed by Washington Senator Maria Cantwell, who ran on her business experience). (Hat Tip: George Will)
Lieberman has his eye closely on oil, and realizes that China and the US are liable to end up at war over it unless something is done. (What he doesn't seem to realize is that that's probably ok with China. They think they're playing the role of the US to our Japan circa 1940.) But he seems to think that the way to handle it is to let China sign what amount to very long-term futures deals, while removing exploration incentive for our own companies.
Lieberman's right on one Big Thing, but he's following his party's tradition a little too closely on another.
