Tweet
I guess if you’re the party chair you have to toe the party line…
DNC Chair Howard Dean welcomed the decision to keep Senator Joseph Lieberman as head of the Homeland Security Committee and, consequently, in the Democratic Caucus, saying the move was pragmatic, magnanimous and politically shrewd.
"You know, the desire of revenge is great, of course. But the truth is public policy doesn’t run on revenge very well," he said. "And when you see the trouble this country has gotten into in terms of foreign policy, where Bush basically ran a foreign policy based on petulance because he was mad at, for example, Mexico, for abstaining on the Security Council when the Iraq War came up, if you have to actually run the country, it is best not to do it based on feeling of anger towards your enemies."
(…)
"My point of view is that Barack won," Dean said. "He can afford to be magnanimous. And if we happen to win both recounts and Georgia, Joe is the 60th vote. And the truth is — and I certainly don’t have to defend Joe Lieberman because, you know, we have an interesting history — but the fact is, he does vote 90 percent of the time with the Democrats. And no, he shouldn’t have said all those things. But why not clean the slate? Why not start all over again? Why not allow him to vote with us on the 90 percent of the stuff? He will be a good vote on climate change — and this matters. He may be a good vote on election reform, which I hope we will get to. So, you know, he may end up – though it is a little against the odds — he may end up being the vote that allows us to conduct business when Mitch McConnell decides we shouldn’t."
That’s an awful lot of mays, Howard, and you should know better than to count on Joe’s vote for anything. Let me just clear something up, since the DNC Chair and almost 80% of the Democratic caucus seem confused about it:
Keeping Joe in the caucus, letting him keep his seniority and committee memberships: Magnanimous.
Letting Joe keep the chairmanship of a pivotal oversight committee where he’s done absolutely nothing to hold the Bush administration accountable on Katrina or anything else; making a mockery of party discipline by not imposing any consequences at all for actively slandering and campaigning against Democrats: Foolish.
Any questions?
52 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About FDL Action
Harry Reid calling Short Ride Joey a Democrat: Priceless
Keeping Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader in the next Congress: senseless.
Please, President-elect Obama, please appoint Joe Lieberman Ambassador to Gofugyourselfistan.
He’s earned it.
We lost one. I was heavily invested in Ned Lamont mentally and financially. I loathe Joe Lieberman. But I won’t allow one choice that I didn’t agree with change my opinion of people I celebrated only two weeks ago.
Has Lie-berman turned up at a Chambliss campaign rally yet?
who do you want and why?
We need to have a citizens’ oversight committee to monitor Lieberman’s oversight committee. Seriously, some one needs to do that. Lieberman has done a lousy job as chairman. So lousy, that I feel less safe knowing that Lieberman is in charge of Homeland Security oversight. My personal belief is that Lieberman being chairman of this committee is a danger to public safety.
Fall is teaching hell for me and so I am working long hours. I did not get time to watch any of his hearings until last night, and as soon as I was finished, I heard a news report that there was a deal, so what the hell, why post anything? It was two in the morning. So, here I am a dollar short and a day late. (and the post I inteded this for just went stale while I was typing this… Doh!)
I watched his hearing on the ‘no-fly’ and other watch lists. As a citizen, and a statistician with just a somewhat better than average knowledge about how such things work, the hearing seemed inept to me. Lieberman called in, as is his wont, a few high level gummint pooh-bahs to give a desultory progress report. He chose one lower ranking one to pick on.
These watch lists have become a monstrous unworkable mess, but Lieberman seems to have decided that they need to work anyway as currently designed, regardless of whether they work.
So, some tubercular Mexican national is getting through the border repeatedly while on a watch list, and you have to go through 30,000 name/birth date/gender etc combos, and you are still not sure what to do because you cannot find where the mistake is? Lieberman: why can’t you do that faster and better? Why can’t you find the mistake before you know who you are looking for? Poohbah reveals that CDC told him, well forget that TB guy for now; he is low priority, low risk TB case, and making a big ruckus about it will probably discourage registration by people with TB. Lieberman: Well, screw the CDC, you should have made a big ruckus at your border stations. Poohbah says a big ruckus would include stopping the whole entry line, and we can’t do that, crossings are already way to slow and we are getting hammered by legitimate traffic getting delayed. Lieberman: I think you should stop them all! Stop them all! Stop the lines!
No independent experts to evaluate the whole system, if there is a better way, how to make fundamental improvements.. No independent experts in the area of statistical classification, or identification, no terrorism or public safety experts, no forensic experts at all. Just gummint pooh-bahs.
Just Lieberman and Collins spouting bizarre opinions and expressing what in my opinion, are serious misunderstandings about how the system works before you have a gold standard ID on who you are trying to stop, AND before have found (all) the specific error(s) that produced the problem with the names and birthdates on the list.
It was like a lost chapter from Kafka’s the Castle, where the bureaucrats hector the villagers about why they are not following the mysterious and ridiculously unworkable rules to the letter. Lieberman looked like an officious, self-righteous and opinionated dimwit.
At one point, Lieberman mentions that these lists can be foiled by changing one’s identity. (Actually, it is worse than that, since I have read in the news that people mistakenly on the watch lists have evaded them through minor modification of their names on a few ID documents so that nothing is triggered on the list, they did not have to change their identity at all). The Lieberman notes, irrelevantly, that most of the 9/11 hijackers used their real names. (That seem irrelevant to me because most of them were here legally, and there were no watch lists at that time. Similar terrorists today would obviously change their tactics precisely because they would know there are no-fly and other watch lists.) But Lieberman is satisfied wtih his analysis and moves on to a renewed hectoring of this poor low level gummint pooh-bah.
At another point, Lieberman insists that the problem is not as big as it seems because most of the duplicate or very similar names on the list map to many fewer specific individuals we want to find, so the minor pooh-bah is officially a bad no-good person because he is exaggerating the problem to cover his ass. (But, just knowing that many of the dizzying arrays of minor name and birthdate variations point to the same person does not help you at all until you have a gold standard ID of this person you want to find, and you can trace how all the mistakes got on the list from his real IDs and how those IDs got mangled or misrecorded into the list. So, is Lieberman on drugs, drunk, does he think weird… what?) Lieberman seems very proud of his insight into this issue.
The hearing I watched on contracting was similar. Lieberman had apparently decided that private contracting in the military had to continue and expand. So, he called in witnesses who would issue boilerplate, a legal expert who gave recommendations about how to do that. I think there are good reasons to believe that hiring private contractors in many cases are more expensive and less effective. But no witnesses were called to investigate that very plausible case. Other senators were sensible of that possibility, but Lieberman seemed to have his mind made up, so why bother to call witnesses qualified to address that issue?
Sorry Howard even YOU can’t make this go away. Your Democratic Senatrs are full of crap, and they are spineless, and we are NOT getting over this.
The party of fail.
Obama seems to be playing “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
very very disturbing dean didn’t know our concerns over joe.
I guess it’s all about winning, not governing for dean
I need to lick some wounds
I will console my self with the thoughts of driftglass, Chicago politics, and dancing monkeys,,,,,
http://driftglass.blogspot.com…..-reid.html
Yep how many ways can Joe screw Obama as Committee chair because you know politically we can’t vote to remove him once he starts an investigation he would righty claim that we are silencing him.
Lawrence O’Donnell was right, speaking to Arianna last night on Rachel’s program — you really don’t want to start applying competence tests to Senate Committee Chairmen. Democrats might have none at all if that’s the criterion, I suppose.
We need a JoeWatch Committee.
He does a truly lousy and inept job anyway that harms public safety though his incompetence. So he needs watching regardless of whether he intentionnally tries to undermine the new administration.
heh, <3 the old movies :)
My “Ned Lamont for Senate” button is still stuck to a magnet in the kitchen and I’m ready to pick it up and run if called upon.
welp, if it is anything like obama’s fias retort it is oig.
my question is… why is Joe so loved by so many of his fellow dem senators that they would tolerate his treason? or, alternately, who does he have the goods on? I don’t hear any load hollering and headshaking on the other side of the isle over Toobz… or even over Wide Stance when his scandal broke. I’m confused.
s/fias/fisa
At the risk of repeating myself, calling Lieberman’s possible removal retribution was nothing but spin. It should have been framed as Lieberman having forfeited his post.
Senator Reid, says no one was more “angry” then him and I believe him. He said he wasn’t “looking back” he was “looking forward”. Well, if you don’t know where you’ve been, you won’t know where you’re going. I wonder if Sen. Reid will be “angry” if a possible democratic senator from Alaska endorses a certain Governor from Wasilla in 2012.Same goes for Dean and the other 42 “Democrats” who let this rat back in their midst. Great leadership Harry…You’ve just set a dangerous precedent. So sure, let Benedict Arnold back in the caucus with no consequences. What’s the worst that could happen?
I volunteered many days and at a substantial cost, for almost two years this last election.
I volunteered as to compesate for the money I refuese to give to Democrats, due to their spineless positions.
I think this Loserman stance allows me to justify, and be the last drop, to stop voting for any democrat for national office going forward and volunteer.
Enough is enough!
If Loserman is so essential to the Senate, then it is really a poor statement of the quality of Democratic Senators.
I am sorry for Howard Dean, whom it thought had some backbone and was capable to stand up to the spineless lifers in in Washington.
It proves once you taste Washington’s influence and money, anything is for grabs including your values, once corrupted always corrupted.
Why is this being framed as revenge when all we ask for is some simple accountability?
Why did we vote for a new President, new Congressmen and Senators if not to hold those responsible for our gravest problems accountable?
One more Dem has his say…we’re irrelevant.
From The Hill:
As the House prepares to elect its leaders, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is challenging the idea that the expanded Democratic majority and its leaders will make a hard left turn.
“For the first time in decades, we are a true national majority party—and if we want to stay that way, we must govern like one,” Hoyer (D-Md.) is to say in a speech today at the National Press Club, according to excerpts of his remarks obtained by The Hill.
Hi everyone……. doing ok…. going for a walk and get my bed made…
see below for info ……
HI Eli …….
OT – apparently Gonzales has so much faith in capabilities of all the loyal Bushies at DOJ that he has — opted for private counsel in lieu of dept representation in the suit against him brought by Metcalf.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…..efense.php
And we, the taxpayers, are footing the bill for both what passed for lawyers at DOJ, and for a real lawyer to represent Gonzales. How lucky can you get?
With all due respect to driftglass, I was in Chicago during the Council Wars, and any comparisons between Obama today and Washington then are superficial at best.
Lieberman played the Senate dems like a fiddle, using Obama’s own campaign rhetoric to save his skin.
With about 60% of today’s late ballots counted, Mark Begich has extended his lead over Ted Stevens, from just over 1,000 votes, to 2,374 votes.
Yay! I’ll take any good news I can get.
wesgpc
lieberman doesn’t look like a
“officious, self-righteous and opinionated dimwit.”,
he is one.
Now I know what date-rape drugs feel like, Howard.
The issue, of course, is not “revenge”. That purposefully spiteful characterization understates the problem, and how much keeping Holy Joe as DHS Senate-overseer exacerbates it.
The problem is a Village mentality that justifies protecting Villagers from the angry forest mob at whatever cost, no matter what they’ve done or who they’ve done it to.
It is a Village mentality that says Congress ought never look at how well taxpayers’ money is spent, at who it enriches and at what cost, or whether it makes us safer or less secure. I guess that’s because once Congress admits to a failing, it’s supposed to tackle it.
Lastly, it’s a Village mentality that says rancid behavior is wholly acceptable, so long as some future gain, however paltry, can be had by keeping the Man in the fold.
You know what, Howard? Forget date rape drugs. This is more like a Twilight Zone episode. The one in which the museum visitor, staring longingly into a picture, for months on end, suddenly finds himself inside a living version of it. Only the picture is a James Ellroy novel, and the guy standing next to you is Dudley Smith.
how about just common sense or just enlightened self interest? the man has proven again and again that he is untrustworthy and prepared to work against the best interests of his own party, and yet that party continues to enable him. It’s like the entire party is acting codependent.
Ian up at the Mothership
So, every day for the past year and a half Lieberman has stood in the gallery of the Senate pissing on the Dems below and after all this time their reaction is still to hold out their hands, glance upward and say, “Why, I do believe it is starting to rain…”
Palin must be depressed over this turn of events… she of the curtailed rise and the empty closets. She might actually have to run for senate in 2012 if she wants to get out of Anchorage anytime soon.
I do hope we don’t lose good, loyal, democrats because of this betrayal by the party elite. But I am sick of voting for these backslappers. I thought Obama would bring real change. This stinks of politics of old. They talk of revenge as though we all are a bunch of bloodthirsty monsters. We just don’t like turncoats in our party. We elect them and they spit in our face. I am a conservative, southern Democrat. I don’t want to be a republican but I take much more of this. “Change we can believe in.” Bull!!!
Can we stick a fork in Stevens yet and proclaim he’s done?
As for as for Lieberman, aka SchmuckMan, I hate the fact he’s getting off but I also realize they’ve pulled all the caps out of his pistol. What I want to know is what would happen if/when he does something contrary to the expected? Is he so arrogant to think he’s getting a pass to do more traitorous acts against the Democrats? Or will he shut up and do WTF he’s told to do for a while? Am I looking to buy a bridge to nowhere?
What possible reason would he have to think otherwise?
If they had stripped him naked of his chairmanships and he did bolt, so what? His political career in Connecticut would have been over. They could have lost the battle and won the war.
That’s it, isn’t it. Holy Joe and the Villagers have just rewarded extreme, destructive behavior. Which ensures we’ll have much more of it. But then, this is the same Congress that gave Bush more than he asked for in FISA amendments, his Detainee Treatement Act, his Protect America Act, his Military Commissions Act, ad nauseum. If hope didn’t spring eternal, why would we expect a Democratic Congress to do anything different?
Based on Obama’s leaked nominations so far, same old shit, different driver.
I have unsubscribed from every last Democratic/Obama/activist organization I have been subscribed to. They’ve all gotten my last dollar.
This whole process was a charade for the gullible.
NO MORE!!!
The CT state Dems are meeting 12/17 to discuss a censure of Liebe. Big deal.
Can someone provide a link to the Senate vote on this?
Interrupting the Ten Years’ Hate for a moment:
The Congressional Democratic leadership told Dean right from the start that they didn’t answer to him, but to Reid and Pelosi. They wouldn’t listen to him, except maybe to do the exact opposite of whatever he recommended.
That’s one reason why Dean concentrated on building up the state orgs rather than bothering to lobby Congress.
Might make the difference between my money, time, and hope – and the easier path of saying F it and beer and the easy path (cheaters win, there is no accountability).
Ah what does it matter in any scenario the money and power folks are set and we will sweat and burn.
John Edwards was about REAL change. He understood malignant power and how to stand up to it. Evidently, Obama doesn’t. very very sad.
I hate the fact he’s getting off but I also realize they’ve pulled all the caps out of his pistol.
Who said the caps have been taken out of his pistol?
Show me some evidence.
Obama orchestrated the resurrection of Joe Lieberman. What are his plans?
There is none yet. I’m just making a comparison to say the kid who got his hand caught in the cookie jar. It’s not likely the behavior will be quickly repeated because he’s going to be watched.
Again the decision sucks but I keep thinking of and hearing other alternatives why Lieberman does and doesn’t matter. What’s to say Obama won’t offer some other Republican Senator a position and it’s someone like Voinovich of Ohio? Voinovich would be replaced by a Democrat because we have a Democratic Gov.
I have a rule that I rarely follow, probably should but believe Obama lives by it…
Don’t overreact.
Every play tug-of-war where you purposely put slack in the rope to throw the other side of balance?
I’m just sayin’…
Maybe I’m not very sophisticated, but I don’t get it. Why should he get something that big for being a wretched turncoat? If they wanted him to caucus with them they could have given him the minor position and taken away Homeland Security, and where would he have gone if it ticked him off? The best he could get from the Republicans would have been ranking member.
The Patricians Club at work, protecting one of their own at our expense. I stand ready to recant if Obama shows this to be some political masterstroke, but…
I share your skepticism but I also like to argue. [g]
I don’t care if anyone thinks my attitude is stupid. I’m done flushing my hard earned dollars on these spineless weasels and then getting bitch slapped for it. Fuck them, fuck them all.
Not one more dime! My next donation will be in 2012, to who ever opposes Lieberscum. Hopefully, it will be a Repug. At least Republicans have the stones to stomp on Judas Lieberman’s throat, when they have him down. I have zero confidence in Democrats ability or willingness to do the right thing. What the Democrats did today, made me regret every dime I’ve donated, all the way back to 2004. All we got was: Change we can count on getting Reamed By.