HARTFORD...A defiant Joseph Lieberman, with William Bennett choking back tears at his side, vowed last night that he will remain in office "for ever and ever and ever".
Lieberman, hailed as 'the conscience of the Senate' because he doesn't deposit his insurance and pharmaceutical campaign checks after sundown Friday, insisted he would triumph. "The voters may have spoken", he bleated, "but only I know what they meant".
Saving himself for constituents is nothing new to Lieberman, who kept his name on the ballot in 2000 on the off chance his heroic onslaught against Dick Cheney in the Vice Presidential debate could not carry Al Gore to victory.
Lieberman pledged to continue working in the Senate to replace the wall between church and state with a shower curtain, and said he was "still open" to the possibility of keeping Terri Schiavo alive.
As for Iraq, while the candidate acknowledged that mistakes had been made, he found it hard to vehemently criticize the President. "I don't know what it is", he swooned, "but God...God I just love that man. If he ever needs a new Defense Secretary..ohh I just get all goose bumply thinking about it".
In a related development, the FBI has traced the problems associated with the Lieberman website to someone at campaign headquarters playing hours and hours of internet poker. William Bennett had no comment.