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Mane attraction: The enormous lion wakes from his slumber as his cub emits a tiny growl
Nestled under the magnificent mane of his father, the little lion cub gives a growl so gentle it would fail to startle a passing gazelle.
But when he grows up he'll be able to roar just like daddy.
Not that this particular parent looked in the mood for exercising his vocal cords. Or indeed any other part of his mighty frame.
He had been trying to enjoy a catnap when his offspring was disturbed by the approach of a Land Rover carrying tourists on safari in Tanzania.
One of the party, Martina Neumann, took this remarkable photograph. She said: 'It was very funny to look at because the lion was so grumpy and tired that it reminded me of many of my friends when they were new dads having to cope with their children.
I bet he didn't thank us one bit for ruining his brief moment of peace.'
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn. and Sen. Susan Collins., R-Maine meet with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington,
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., right, accompanied by Sen. Susan Collins, Maine meets with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2009.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn. meets with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2009.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., right, accompanied by Sen. Susan Collins, Maine meets with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2009.
The senator Republicans love and liberals love to hate is at it again.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, who no longer considers himself a Democrat but is holding tight to a coveted chairmanship, thoroughly rattled the Obama administration and his colleagues in the last 48 hours when he threatened to join Republicans in blocking health care overhaul over government-run insurance and an expansion of Medicare.
"Say it ain't so, Joe," Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "I think Joe's judgment is wrong."
Don't count me as a "no" vote just yet, Lieberman indicated Tuesday.
As long as any government plan or Medicare expansion stays out of the bill, "then I'm going to be in a position where I can say what I've wanted to say all along: that I'm ready to vote for health care reform," the Connecticut lawmaker told reporters.
Lieberman isn't the typical Democrat the party machinery is primed to appease as President Barack Obama and Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., cobble together the 60 votes required to pass a health care bill.
No, this is Lieberman — Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore's running mate in 2000 but now independent in every sense of the word. Lieberman lost his party's primary in 2006 in part because of his pro-Iraq war votes and won re-election as an Independent.
Then he committed what some Democrats still consider the ultimate apostasy: He endorsed Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona with a rousing speech at the GOP national convention and campaigned heartily for his longtime friend.
Back in the Senate with McCain — after Obama moved into the White House — Lieberman later apologized to his Democratic colleagues. Seething but needing Lieberman to get to the 60 vote-majority required to break filibusters, they allowed him to keep the chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee.
From Obama on down, they vowed to step past the unpleasantness and look to the future.
But there held another chapter in Lieberman's tortured relationship with Democrats.
By Tuesday, Lieberman was telling Obama and his colleagues that the debate has been tough on him. Outside with reporters, he blamed the tussle on Democrats trying to cram too much — namely, any kind of government health insurance — into the overhaul
"What happens then is you run the risk of losing everything," Lieberman told reporters.
That's exactly what Democrats feared was happening on Sunday, when they heard Lieberman call the latest iteration of their bill, a plan to allow people age 55 to 64 to buy Medicare benefits, too costly.
There, potentially, went Reid's 60th vote, a development that unnerved Democrats at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue and must have come in some measure as a surprise to Reid. Only two months earlier, the majority leader had called Lieberman "the least of Harry Reid's problems."
By Monday, Lieberman headed Reid's list of senators who must be accommodated. Democrats circulated a videotaped newspaper interview from September showing Lieberman saying he supports the idea of a Medicare expansion. Lieberman said in a statement later that the details of the bill had changed since then and so had his opinion.
The White House got involved, and by nightfall, the Medicare provision was out. And Lieberman sounded like he was back in.
At a private White House complex meeting with Senate Democrats Tuesday, Lieberman said Obama greeted him warmly.
"He said 'hello, how are you brother?' It was a good conversation," recalled the senator, who in an interview with CNN signaled he could switch parties again. "It's unlikely I'd run as a Republican, but I wouldn't foreclose any possibility. I think the more likely thing is that I'd run as an Independent because that's what I am," he said.
Congressional Democrats, both furious and wary of re-offending their mercurial colleague, began speaking of Lieberman only when asked, mostly in the bland terms.
What was Lieberman thinking?
"I have no idea," Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said with a polite grin. "Our focus is on 60 votes."
Does he have too much power over the shape of the overhaul?
"That's a Senate matter," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., demurred.
"You're too Lieberman-focused," Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., told reporters afterward.
Lieberman himself said later that he's prepared to live with his opposition to publicly funded insurance, convinced, he said, that it would increase taxes.
It's a truism about the Senate that the end of sensitive negotiations present outsized opportunities for clout and attention for any senator with a request or a demand. Power in this debate has flowed largely to those on the fence or in the middle. But while senators like being courted, the position can be uncomfortable.
Inside Obama's closed-door meeting at the White House complex Tuesday, Lieberman stood.
"I said, 'I haven't really had a lot of fun the last couple of weeks,'" the besieged senator told reporters.
"And then (Ohio Democratic Sen.) Sherrod Brown got up and said, 'I haven't been having fun either,'" Lieberman recalled. "And the president said, 'Why don't we all begin to have some fun? Let's pass the bill."
The U.S. Capitol is seen in the background as flags fly at half-staff at the Washington Monument in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009, in honor of the passing of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass
Alex Gahl, left, and her friend Rylee Thomas, both 2, accompany Rylee's mother April, top, of Marstons Mills, Mass., to pay their respects to Sen. Edward Kennedy outside the Kennedy compound, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009, in Hyannisport, Mass
The front pages of newspapers announce the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy at a newsstand in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass., Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009.
Newspaper vender Curtis Thomas displays the front page of Chicago Tribune as he yells the news about the death of U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009 in Chicago. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the last surviving brother in a political dynasty and one of the most influential senators in history, died Tuesday night at his home on Cape Cod after a year-long struggle with brain cancer. He was 77
A news ticker in New York's Times Square announces the death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., on Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009. The last surviving brother in a political dynasty and one of the most influential senators in history, died Tuesday night at his home on Cape Cod after a year-long struggle with brain cancer. He was 77
Suzanne Norton, of Oak Hill, Va., left, and Shirley Shiflett, of Springfield, Va., look at at a newspaper article remembering Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., at a display outside the Newseum in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009. Kennedy, the last surviving brother in an enduring political dynasty, died Tuesday night at his home on Cape Cod after a yearlong battle with brain cancer. He was 77
Madelynne Norton, 12, of Oak Hill, Va., looks at at a newspaper article remembering Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., at a display outside the Newseum in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009. Kennedy, the last surviving brother in an enduring political dynasty, died Tuesday night at his home on Cape Cod after a yearlong battle with brain cancer. He was 77
Madelynne Norton, 12, of Oak Hill, Va., left, and her grandmother Shirley Shiflett, of Springfield, Va., look at at a newspaper article remembering Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., at a display outside the Newseum in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009. Kennedy, the last surviving brother in an enduring political dynasty, died Tuesday night at his home on Cape Cod after a yearlong battle with brain cancer. He was 77
Meagan Manning, a staff member for Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., answers phone calls in Kennedy's office on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009. Kennedy, the last surviving brother in an enduring political dynasty, died Tuesday night at his home on Cape Cod after a yearlong battle with brain cancer. He was 77
In Kennedy's Office Business cards for Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., sit atop a desk in Kennedy's office on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009. Kennedy, the last surviving brother in an enduring political dynasty, died Tuesday night at his home on Cape Cod after a yearlong battle with brain cancer. He was 77
Henry Sanford, staff assistant for Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., takes a seat while waiting in Kennedy's office on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009. Kennedy, the last surviving brother in an enduring political dynasty, died Tuesday night at his home on Cape Cod after a yearlong battle with brain cancer. He was 77
A flag flies at half-staff at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009, in honor of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., the last surviving brother in an enduring political dynasty, who died Tuesday night at his home on Cape Cod after a yearlong battle with brain cancer. He was 77
The Lincoln Memorial is seen in the background as flags fly at half-staff at the Washington Monument in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009, in honor of the passing of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
