Lieberman gets away Scott free
The Democrats voted by secret ballot on the chairmanship fate of Joe Lieberman today. Showing the courage often associated with Democrats, they let Lieberman keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee rather than risk calling his bluff. Lieberman had said losing his chairmanship would be “unacceptable”. They capitulated and decided to allow Lieberman to keep his very powerful position despite the hard work he put in for months to try to undermine the Democratic Party.
In a move so weak it’s almost funny, they decided to oust him from a subcommittee on the Environment and Public Works. They really shouldn’t have bothered. It matters not at all to Lieberman himself and fools absolutely no one into thinking you are at all stern or disciplined.
Lieberman, who it must be said has 10 times the huevos of the Democratic Party, did not act like a man who had been granted a second chance he may have not deserved. He called the result “fair and forward-looking” and, when asked about apologizing for some of his remarks during the campaign (like saying Obama put politics above country, that asking if he was a Marxist was “a good question” or that Obama wanted surrender) he offered what has to be one of the lamest halfway non-apologies ever:
“Some of the statements, some of the things that people have said I said about Senator Obama, are simply not true. There are other statements that I made that I wish I had made more clearly, and there are some that I made that I wish I had not made at all. And obviously in the heat of campaigns, that happens to all of us, but I regret that and now it’s time to move on.”
Imagine trying that little gem out on your significant other. In a relationship, it would have you sleeping on the couch. In the Senate, it gets you chairmanship of one of the most important committees.
Though the Democrats and Lieberman talk about reconcilliation and moving forward, this is simply another formality they should not bother with. Everyone knows that this move has nothing to do with reconcilliation and everything to do with getting within reach of a 60 vote majority. With races in the balance in Alaska, Minnesota and Georgia, Lieberman’s vote is of utmost importance, and both he and the Democrats know it.
The Democrats will not win Georgia. They will likely win Alaska while Minnesota remains quite a toss-up. This will get the Democrats 58 or 59 votes, including Lieberman. They still don’t have 60, but if they can peel off a few votes now and then, they can still wield a lot of power. If the Democrats were further away from that 60 vote majority, the word “reconciliation” wouldn’t be so frequent, and the words “discipline” and “consequences” would be rather more common.
to Criticize Lieberman and not Biden, HRC and the rest of their ilk is being selective at the very best, although the middle ground would find it not consistent on what someone cares about.
My eyes - Lieberman has the integrity to remain constant, and there is something to be said for that - but I do not consider the selective caring to be much to write home about.
Interested makes a good point. Both Biden and Clinton has slammed Obama in the past. McCain even used Biden’s statements against Obama.
Why are they any different than Lieberman? No, they didn’t actively campaign for the other side, but in the primaries, they were the other side.
Yet, I’m sure if this had been a Republican supporting Obama (see Hagel, Charles, Powell, Colin, et. al), it wouldn’t be an issue.
Smart move by the Democrats, if you ask me. The country sent a signal to all observant politicians when it elected Obama - they bought his promise of change. The biggest change many voters want is an end to the insanely intense partisanship, and a return to centrist governing. That means accepting that the Democratic Party’s left wing shot themselves in the foot when they challenged Lieberman in 2006, and the public is less interested in party discipline right now than centrist governance. The economy is in the toilet, and an internal dispute in the Democratic party will just make the public more receptive to the Republicans in 2010. Looks to me as if the grown-ups are regaining control of the Democratic Party.
Of course, the Republicans are acting a lot more like the Democrats did for the past 40 years right now. So maybe the Demos would not have had to worry about a carefully constructed Republican counter move. But why take the chance? Yes, the Kos folks are unhappy. that’s a good sign. Maybe Obama really means it when he says he wants to be President of all of America. I hope so.
Voting one’s conscience should not be a political crime. That Lieberman was at risk for doing so says a lot about the party system.
It is constantly amazing to me to see the militant left lavish praise on Chuck Hagel for his independence but then turn around and call Joe Lieberman a traitor.
It proves that the standards used are purely partisan in nature and have no objective legitimacy.
Smart move by the Dms.
Jason, Chuck Hagel did not go to the Democratic Convention and question the Republican candidate’s patriotism or say that he did not put his country first. Chuck Hagel did not call his party’s candidate a Marxist (or what would make more sense in McCain’s case, a Nazi or a fascist). Chuck Hagel did not say that he did not think the United States could survive a Republican majority.
If you can find anywhere that Chuck Hagel attacked John McCain, or any Republican candidate, with ad hominems about not loving their country or putting their country’s interests first, or about having the support of America’s enemies, or about being a threat to their country’s national security, you come back and tell me.
If you can even come back and tell me that Chuck Hagel publicly supported Barack Obama for president, campaigned for him, served as a close adviser to his campaign, appeared with him at rallies and other campaign events, campaigned for Democratic down-ticket candidates, gave a big speech for him at the Democratic convention, let me know and we can talk.
“Voting one’s conscience should not be a political crime. That Lieberman was at risk for doing so says a lot about the party system.”
Umm, no. It says a lot about the party, not the system.
Wilky: See (some) of the crew of National Review’s The Corner and the like every time a Republican would endorse Obama.
This stuff was coming from both corners this election.
They would make a major mistake by snubbing Lieberman. They have to unite the party, one, and govern like Centrists if they want to be successful. They should completely discard the Kos folks in the coming years, and then promise them ponies two, four, six, and eight years from now in return for donations, positive coverage on the blogs, etc.
Lieberman is a fairly popular guy, and he is only a ‘DINO’ in so far that he is very hawkish on foreign policy.
Come to think of it, much like John F. Kennedy was. As was Lyndon B. Johnson. Remember that? Anti-communists, anti-socialists foreign policy hawks. And they were Dems, not ‘DINOs’ nor Republicans.
If the Democrats want to keep on winning elections they will need people like Lieberman. The Pelosi / Feingold wing of the party cannot win national elections.
As for ‘discipline,’ etc.: this is politics. It is not a love relationship. You work together when you can benefit from each other, you don’t when you can’t. The ’sleeping on the couch’ has absolutely nothing to do with breaking party ranks. It is unprofessional, one could say, but in the end, individual senators - all of them - do one thing only: what they deem in their own best interest.
Keep that in mind next time people talk about ‘discipline,’ etc. It’s may about those things for the Kossacks, but political professionals know that it is, in fact, about ambition, and probably rightly so.
Crafting distinctions does not create genuine differences, Kathy, just post hoc rationalizations for what is blatant hypocrisy.
Michael, I still stand by what I said, it says a lot about the party, not the system.
Maybe I should be a little less vague. Its says a lot about the leaders of the party, not the system, no matter the party.
Blind partisanship is bad. Partisanship with eyes wide open, not so much.
We have an adversarial two party system and so part of our politics is partisanship or some would prefer to say loyalty. Lieberman was given plum appointments by the party he caucuses with and he chose to regularly viciously attack that party. He did not just express disagreement on an issue or two. Many Dems express disagreement with the party on more issues than does Lieberman (virtually all of the blue dogs do). It is the manner of that expression that rankles. Politicians from either party do not attack their own party and campaign for opposing party candidates (note the plural) particularly not in national elections and particularly not by smearing their party. Any politician who does this should be kicked to the curb unless he/she was desperately needed. I frankly can’t see a Republican doing what Lieberman did and keeping his/her chairmanships unless it either gave them a majority or guaranteed them either filibusters or breaking of filibusters on key issues. Until this episode I wouldn’t have thought Dems would either. Lieberman apparently has bluffed the Dems into thinking he is still desperately needed, though I don’t see what he has to offer and I wouldn’t trust him to give whatever it is he claims to offer.
Can this finally be the last nail in the coffin of the whole Dems are so much more partisan and so much less accepting of differing within party opinions meme? Then at least something positive will have come out of it.
Grewgills is a good example of what had and is happening to Lieberman. And the epitome of why Dem’s should not step out of the party line.
People, Lieberman NEVER questioned Obama’s patriotism, nor did he say he didn’t put his country first. He said McCain did–what people assume that implies is their problem. The only criticism Lieberman made about Obama was that he’s inexperienced and that his national security policies will not keep our country safe. And he’s right on both counts.