Put him in the moat and see if he floats.
These are two big asides, I know, but aside from national security issues and aside from supporting McCain (and smearing Obama), Lieberman has voted with the democrats down the line. He doesn’t call himself a democrat, and sometimes doesn’t act like one, but on social and financial issues, he pretty much is one. That isn’t to say he should keep his chairmanships, but it’s difficult to imagine him being shipped off to the republicans.
I say screw him. Let’s see how well he votes according to his convictions after losing his position. If he really is a social and financial liberal, he’ll continue to vote that way. If he doesn’t, then we’ll know he was no more than an opportunist.
He’s already chatting with the Republicans about working with them.
Good thread. Lots of good stuff.
he absolutely cannot have his chairmanship. His committee has limited ability to subpoena the president’s cabinet, similar to Waxman’s. And unlike Waxman he has chose not to use this ability against President Bush. Once there is a President Obama watch how quickly he remembers his job.
I have 100% faith that he will use that power against President Obama, even if Obama has done nothing, because he is a petty and vindictive man.
Funk.
Yeah, because taking away a powerful Democratic leadership position from the guy who endorsed the Republican candidate is essentially like a witch-hunt.
They’re only talking about ditching him as chairman, right, not throwing him out of the party. He’s the one that says he’ll leave the democratic party if he can’t be the chairman.
Technically he already has left the party, he’s running as an independent now. He still caucuses with the Democratic party in the Senate, and he is threatening to go caucus with the Republicans if he loses his chairmanship.
Lieberman is like the Talleyrand of American politics right now. He switches sides faster faster than Jack Sparrow. Independence for him is just a way to avoid being associated with the losing party, whichever it might be at a particular moment. It’s become a bit sickening to me, and I say that as someone who likes some of what Lieberman has supported. He couldn’t smooth a silk sheet if he had a hot date with a babe…
Sorry, I lost my train of thought.
I don’t believe this is true. Whenever I checked on specific issues he didn’t vote the way I wanted. Plus see the description of how he ran his committee by magnet, several posts upthread.
I know there are issues where he did vote with the Democrats, but simply not enough, and not on the important stuff. This is rather beside the point anyway, as I don’t think he’s going to go and change all of his voting positions just because the Democrats replace him with another.
Kicking him out would seem to be basic party discipline. I mean, if you don’t knock the teeth out of an “independent” who caucuses with you but votes against you, and then goes on to slam your candidate, at the other party’s national convention… you’ve got no fucking balls.
I have trouble seeing how we can ever possibly have moderate, bipartisan government so long as the party in power continues to subscribe to this sort of tit-for-tat, burnt earth infighting. What possible hope is there for real, across-the-aisle negotiation if the Democrats can’t even be charitable to someone who actually agrees with them half the time? Is this really all that different from Bush’s policy of valuing loyalty above all else?
Since when is a committee chairmanship considered charity?
It’s not like there is a shortage of Democrats who are qualified for the position and have actually supported their party. Why shouldn’t Reid be “charitable” to one of them? Keeping Joe is a slap in their face.
Is this really all that different from Bush’s policy of valuing loyalty above all else?
You would have a point only if Lieberman were good at his job, which he isn’t. I don’t think valuing seniority above all else is an improvement over valuing loyalty.
I have a crazy idea. How about if Reid values the people who can most effectively advance the agenda he wants to enact? Bye-bye, Joe.
The problem with Lieberman isn’t that he’s moderate or bipartisan. It’s that he has morphed over the last two years into a partisan hack for the party that he doesn’t caucus with. Unless you think that wondering aloud whether the country can survive electing the presidential candidate of the party you are nominally affiliated with is bipartisan.
Taking away his chairmanship should only be the start. He gets no pork of any kind for his state. Zero zip. And make sure that his state knows it is due to him. Burn the fucker to the ground.
Fuck him up. Sure he will become a standard speaker for the right wing media and that will hurt in 2010 and 2012, but it was going to hurt anyway. While you have power fuck the bastard.
There’s a pretty good argument to be made that Lieberman is not the best person for the position to begin with and he was only holding on to the chairmanship because his cooperation with the party was considered necessary. He refused to use his position to call for investigations into pretty much anything. Flushing him out of the chairmanship and replacing him with someone who will actually take action is the less partisan thing to do, even if we take a measure of satisfaction from it.
Fair enough. As I said before, I don’t personally like Lieberman, and I refused to vote for him back when I lived in Connecticut. I’m just playing devil’s advocate here; my fear is that this all-Democratic government will too easily fall into the same bad habits that poisoned the Republican party when they were in power.
There’s not ‘valuing loyalty’ and then there’s literally going on campaign tours with the opposition.
To be honest, Joe may think he’s in a winning place, but he’s actually in a no-win position here. The Dem caucus will probably be at 58 votes, so they’re short the filibuster-proof majority that would make him valuable, his team hates him, and the President-elect probably really doesn’t like him.
Given after his bashing of Obama, I find it unlikely that the Senate will leave him in a position to act as the committee chair that is in charge of oversight of the administration. On top of it all, he’s going to have a hell of a time getting elected next time around.
If I were Obama, I’d try to make the whole thing go away by offering him an ambassadorship or other dignified-sounding non-cabinet post where Lieberman can retire while saving face.
Why is everyone so convinced that the caucus won’t have 60 votes counting Lieberman? Begich and Franken each have at least a coin-flip chance of winning, and the GA run-off could definitely be won by an influx from the Obama campaign’s organization.
I don’t know that any of that really changes the discussion, though. There’s no way they can let Lieberman keep his chairmanship, even if he would give them 60. Control of that committee is important, and punishing a betrayal of the magnitude that he committed is equally important.
Because the democratic leadership in congress are pussies. they wouldn’t support lamont, they wouldn’t support obama over clinton, they wouldn’t stand up to Mr. 20% on the war, they wouldn’t oppose the changes to FISA.
They are Jack’s impotent rage. Hopefully Obama, the first Demoncrat besides Dean, Lamont and Feingold to show they’ve got a pair, will take care of Leiberman.