Retiring Senator Joe Lieberman talks guns, unproductive Congress and being Gore’s running mate

Joe Lieberman’s political career spanning four decades might be ending but the Senator says he has never seen any Congress as unproductive and divided as the present one. Lieberman also reflected on the Connecticut school shooting and the possible Gore-Lieberman presidency during 2000 elections.

During an interview with ABC News on Thursday, the retiring Democratic Senator said that the Congress is moving in exactly the same direction which the first president of United States warned us not to follow. Describing the present Congress as one of the most unproductive in American history, Lieberman said that it is ‘where members of Congress would put the interest of their party or political faction, as Washington described it, higher than the interest of our country."

"If you look at the record it's either the interest of the party or a rigid adherence to an ideological position that says I will only take 100 percent of what I want on this piece of legislation or I won't vote for it," added the senator. "When you ask for 100 percent in a democracy where compromise is necessary, the whole country ends up with zero percent."

Lieberman is perhaps one of the most well-known bipartisan figures in recent American politics who rose to national prominence during his bid for the vice presidential running mate to Al-Gore in 2000 elections against former Republican President, George W. Bush. In 2008, Lieberman who had turned to an independent by that time was on the verge of being selected as the running mate to close friend John McCain, who later on tried to change the game by announcing Sarah Palin, the then Alaska governor, as his VP choice.

"When John decided he couldn't go for me as vice president, I actually think he did me a favor, because I could have gone down in American history as the only person to run for vice president twice on different tickets and lose both times, so I'd rather not have that distinction," Lieberman joked.

Lieberman also noted that had Gore won the presidency back then, the country would not have been into the kind of debt it is in right now due to the eight years of Bush-Cheney administration.

Reflecting on the school shooting tragedy in Connecticut, Lieberman said that it would be better to draw out some clear lines with respect to gun control in the country without further hurting the people about what they could still have today if the incident had not occurred.

“I think if we strengthen our gun laws nationally it would prevent some murders that are occurring now,” said the four-term senator. “That’s why it’s worth doing.”