He Sure Loves A Klieg Light

Maybe the worst thing about Russ Feingold's czar hearing yesterday is that it got got Joe Lieberman a-thinking:

Hey, so guess who is mulling new legislation to solve the alleged problem of Obama’s “czars”? Joe Lieberman!

He may even hold hearings on the czars, as the chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Since this will confer legitimacy on an attack that has mostly emanated from Glenn Beck and the hothouse right, it could prompt an “I told you so” chorus from those who argued that Lieberman should be stripped of his committee slots.

Leslie Phillips, a spokesperson for Lieberman’s committee, confirms by email that Lieberman’s legislation is “in the early conceptual stage.” She also said a hearing is in the works, with its schedule up the air until the committee can nail down witnesses.

Feingold's hearing yesterday should have actually ended this debate in Congress, not begun it. The panel, assembled on a bipartisan basis by Feingold and Tom Coburn, pretty unanimously argued that the Obama Administration was within Constitutional boundaries to have Presidential advisors in the White House. But Lieberman loves those Fox klieg lights (you know, the network who gives you "what we believe to be the facts"), and so does his partner in crime on the Committee, Susan Collins:

John Harrison, a University of Virginia law professor, compared the czars to the position of White House chief of staff, saying both hold great influence and can speak for the president, but their legal powers are limited.

Their "practical authority . . . is not legal authority, and as long as the distinction is rigorously maintained there will be no legal problem," Harrison said in his written testimony.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who had also written Obama questioning the czars, said in a statement the issue was not dead. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, where she is the ranking member, will hold a similar hearing next week.

"The appointments of so many czars have muddied the waters, causing confusion and risking miscommunication going forward," Collins said.

Lieberman's call for legislation is the first time that has come up, taking this to an additional level. And it's not surprising coming from Holy Joe. You may recall that he got Glenn Beck into Yale. Yes, that's right:

"One local politician who appreciated Beck's regular digs at the governor was the man who had defeated Weicker in a bitterly contested 1988 senate race: Democrat Joe Lieberman. Beck and the senator were friendly throughout the '90s, until they fell out over Lieberman's refusal to back the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998. But before they parted ways, Lieberman would play a role in Beck's search for a worldview and identity by helping Beck enroll part-time at Yale in the fall of 1996. The ADHD-diagnosed Beck didn't last long at Yale. He took one class, "Early Christology," and dropped out."

Lieberman has appeared on Beck's show in the past. And once he submits this legislation, I'm sure he will again. He loves that klieg light.

It's definitely looking like keeping Lieberman as the chair of the committee in the Senate that can investigate the executive branch was a sound decision by Democrats.

Poor People Can Just Go To Free Clinics

I'm sure that the right thinks there's no need for health care reform because the system works great right now. If you get sick you go to the emergency room, and Bob's your uncle. Here's GoOPer Jack Kingston saying basically that. And here's Connecticut for Lieberman's own Joe Lieberman saying how great the current system working, meaning there's no need for a public option.

On Planet Reality, the only reason that the American system doesn't look like a total nightmare, I mean a people-dying-in-the-streets nightmare, is because of numerous local efforts to keep things afloat. The "just go to the ER" approach adds tens of billions to health care costs. But even that isn't being used to the extent it could, because of the existence of free community clinics. Which will cease to exist before long, on the current trajectory.

The Mission of Mercy, a group of traveling clinics that circulate through towns in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas and Arizona, is one of more than 1,200 free clinics across the nation that are feeling the effects of the economic downturn.

Their patient lists are growing as Americans lose their jobs and their health insurance, but as demand grows with rising unemployment, their donations are dwindling. This year, Mission of Mercy has $350,000 less than it did last year; it takes no government funds for its services.

"People are so afraid to give now, because they're thinking they could lose their job next," said Linda Ryan, the executive director of Mission of Mercy. "We're squished because we have more people in need; we need to grow now more than ever — who knows what will happen with health care?"

Over the past year, free clinics across the country have seen a 20 percent decrease in donations and a 40 percent to 50 percent increase in patients, said Nicole D. Lamoureux, the executive director of the National Association of Free Clinics. Last year, the clinics the association represents — which largely have been excluded from the health care debate — treated 4 million people. This year, Lamoureux expects, they'll serve some 8 million, 83 percent of whom come from homes in which at least one person works full time.

"Quite frankly, the need is so great at some point in time we'll hit a place where we have to say we need to start cutting," Lamoureux said. "We'd like to be a part of those discussions (on health care.) We really need to make sure that this legislation gives the people we serve access to quality health care."

The New York Times did a good story on one of these clinics, in Milwaukee, which is doing its best but cannot hope to survive given the increase in demand.

The current system forces many of the nation's poor, even people who have jobs, EVEN PEOPLE WHO HAVE COVERAGE through Medicaid or Medicare, to visit these community clinics, which just don't have the funds to survive. There are often no other options for primary care. These clinics are the last line of defense and they're failing. They're staffed by good people who selflessly seek to protect and care for everyone regardless of ability to pay. They won't exist in a decade.

And then everyone will TRULY see the consequences of a for-profit health care system, if no reform is accomplished.

In Three Years, I Could Support The Plan That Doesn't Start For Four Years

Here's what's actually crazy about what Joe Lieberman is saying here.

The Democratic-turned-independent senator said he knows his opposition to the government-run option will probably foil the Democrats' efforts to pass the bill.

"There will be no shot at 60 votes, because I'm not the only one," he said.

But he added: "If we start this out and three years from now a case can be made that the private market is not working effectively, I would support the public option."

The public option, in the plans on offer, wouldn't start until 2013, FOUR years from now.

Of course, the way a trigger would be set up would be to ensure that the insurance industry cleared whatever arbitrary marker they needed to in order to stave off competition. So the notion of a public option coming into being somehow in the future would be a fantasy.

That's how it works. But Lieberman, who knows this, is being completely disingenuous here.

The McCain-Lieberman Show Is Back

If it's Sunday, it's two discredited Senators who should be irrelevant.

John McCain continued his dominance over the Beltway discourse yesterday by demanding that Obama drop the public option from his health care reform bill. That would be a precondition to Republican support, says McCain, despite the fact that Republicans have throughout the process showed no inclination to support a contention from Obama that the sky is blue and water is wet, let alone anything to do with health care. It's a brilliant strategy to try and fork Obama between his base of supporters and conservative Democrats in Washington, but on the merits it's a completely silly idea.

At least McCain's partner in crime, Joe Lieberman, is more honest. He doesn't want health care reform because... he doesn't want health care reform.

In case you were wondering, Joe Lieberman said this morning on John King's show that we need to concentrate on cost controls in the health care sector in order to bring down the deficit and forget about universal coverage. We just can't cover everyone, but we have to figure out a way to cut costs dramatically because health care is bankrupting the country.

Considering that Lieberman doesn't understand that universal coverage with everyone paying in will mitigate health care inflation, and that he considers cost control the most important thing, one can only assume that he's the guy who wants to off granny --- and you too, if you don't have insurance. After all, we know that people who aren't insured get some very expensive, inadequate care if they do get sick because we require that hospitals treat people in an emergency. If cutting the deficit is the point of health care reform, then you've got to go where the money is --- sick people.

Lieberman and Richard Lugar both agree that Obama shouldn't have put Health Care on the agenda at all because there is a recession. But, of course, if the recession was over you couldn't put health care on the agenda because Lieberman and Lugar would say it would hurt the recovery. And if the economy is rolling, everyone who is willing to work should be able to get covered, so there's no need for health care reform. It's funny how that works.

Later, Lieberman actually tried to use the civil rights movement as a model for doing almost nothing on health care this year. Now, Lieberman has, throughout his career, traded off his image of being a Freedom Rider in the early 1960s. I wasn't aware that, when he was in Mississippi signing up black people to vote, his goal was to do nothing substantial for a while until the country became more comfortable with black people. If so, he'd have been the only Freedom Rider with such a mentality. I think the "justice delayed is justice that's fine with me!" crowd had only one member.

The wanker caucus in the puffed-up US Senate is verging on a majority. And of course, that's the problem, one which Ross Douthat, of all people, comes close to nailing. Conservative Democrats really don't want to do much of anything with their majority, even though the cost of doing nothing could be fatal.

What’s more, health care reform is the Democratic Party’s signature issue. Its wonks have thought longer and harder about it than any other topic. Its politicians are vastly better at talking about the subject than Republicans: if an election is fought over health care, bet on the Democrat every time. And for all the complexity involved, it’s arguably easier to tackle than other liberal priorities. It’s more popular than cap and trade, it’s less likely to split the party than immigration and it’s more amenable to technocratic interventions than income inequality.

If the Congressional Democrats can’t get a health care package through, it won’t prove that President Obama is a sellout or an incompetent. It will prove that Congress’s liberal leaders are lousy tacticians, and that its centrist deal-makers are deal-makers first, poll watchers second and loyal Democrats a distant third. And it will prove that the Democratic Party is institutionally incapable of delivering on its most significant promises.

You'd think that the instinct for self-preservation would be some kind of impetus to getting something done. So far, it hasn't emerged.

Insurance That Doesn't Insure

The New York Times basically goes where Michael Moore went in his film SiCKo, finding that the problems with the health care system are just as bad for those who have insurance as those who don't. Insurance companies have the financial incentive to deliver as little on their promises of coverage as possible - it's as simple as that:

Health insurance is supposed to offer protection — both medically and financially. But as it turns out, an estimated three-quarters of people who are pushed into personal bankruptcy by medical problems actually had insurance when they got sick or were injured.

And so, even as Washington tries to cover the tens of millions of Americans without medical insurance, many health policy experts say simply giving everyone an insurance card will not be enough to fix what is wrong with the system.

Too many other people already have coverage so meager that a medical crisis means financial calamity.

The real stories in this piece will break your heart. Families forced into bankruptcy because insurers found a way to exclude their medical treatment from their coverage. Insurers selling coverage that is essentially worthless. Plans that cap reimbursement for an operation at $5,000, when most operations cost several times that at the very least.

The crack solution from Republicans and conservaDems to this issue of insurers issuing worthless insurance is to create a monopoly for their industry, pay subsidies to people to funnel over to them, and not allow any public insurance option to compete for fear that it would actually lower prices for consumers. That's literally their concern:

(Lieberman's) two key objections are:

"If we create a public option, the public is going to end up paying for it."

"My fear is...[health care providers] would end up getting levels of reimbursement from the public plan...comparable to what they get today from Medicaid."

He thinks that Medicare/Medicaid bargaining rates are insulting to providers, but rising health care costs are OK for working stiffs. Lieberman, by the way, promised universal health care during his 2006 campaign for Senate. Of course, in practice, he's tried to kill universal health care ever since 1993. And insurance companies dominate Connecticut.

This is part of a general strategy by Republicans and moderates to reward the very people who caused the problems that "reform" legislation seeks to solve. It makes sense for the corporations pulling the strings, but nobody else.

The Coming Military-Industrial Complex Battle

A Senate panel that I assume doesn't include Evan Bayh or Ben Nelson passed unanimously a bill to rein in the contracting process at the Pentagon. There's a lot to like about this bill, which is co-sponsored by John McCain.

The bill would require the Pentagon to do more extensive engineering studies before embarking on new weapons programs and to rebuild its oversight staff, which was sharply reduced after the end of the cold war.

It would create a position for a project-testing director at the Pentagon and make it easier to end programs that exceed their original budget estimates by 25 percent.

Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat from Michigan who is chairman of the committee, said before the vote on Thursday that the changes were meant to be “tough medicine.”

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has been scrutinizing the most troubled programs and is expected to propose cuts in several major programs soon.

The Government Accountability Office, the auditing arm of Congress, reported this week that nearly 70 percent of the Pentagon’s 96 largest weapons programs were over budget last year, for a combined total of $296 billion above the original estimates.

Obviously, it's easy to change the PROCESS for procurement - a fair bit of the bill concerns realistic cost estimates (read: higher ones). The proof of whether Congress can really push back against out-of-control contracting comes when Bob Gates releases his Pentagon budget.

Reporting from Washington -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates will announce his plans for a sweeping overhaul of the defense budget on Monday, Pentagon officials said today.

Gates will announce his decisions first in telephone calls to congressional leaders Monday morning and then in an afternoon news conference.

Gates has been working for weeks on an overhaul of the defense budget and has been contemplating tough decisions on whether to cancel the Air Force's F-22 fighter plane, Navy shipbuilding programs, the Army's Future Combat System and a host of other weapons programs.

In an unusual move for the Pentagon, Gates will announce his budget recommendations before shipping the formal recommendation to the White House's Office of Management and Budget.

"It ... reflects the magnitude of the decision," said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell. "These aren't changes on the margins. It is a fundamental shift in direction."

Already Holy Joe and his pals in the GOP are pushing back against this. They cannot conceive of an armed forces without bloated budgets the size of the rest of the world combined. It doesn't matter that America can't afford it, because military spending is magic.

This will be an epic fight.

Caught Between Barak And A Hard Place

After Bibi Netanyahu was given the opportunity to form a government there was an assumption that this would be accomplished in short order. But so far, Labor has turned down Netanyahu's offer to join a unity coalition, and Kadima has made no agreements to join either. They're basically calling Bibi's bluff and forcing him to honor the promises of his far-right coalition partners:

Kadima narrowly beat Likud in the elections, making it the largest party in Parliament by one seat, but Likud commands a larger bloc, which includes religious and right-wing parties. Mr. Netanyahu could quickly form a government with these partners but would prefer a broader, less hawkish coalition.

His success will depend on how committed he is to the religious and rightist parties that endorsed him to become prime minister, and what, if anything, he has promised them. Both Ms. Livni, now the foreign minister, and Mr. Barak, the defense minister, have said they will head into opposition before legitimizing a government that includes elements of the far right.

Seems to me that Netanyahu is in a spot. If he rejects his far-right partners and secures Kadima's support, he will have sold out his base. If he creates that far-right government that clearly is his ideological preference, he risks alienating large swaths of the country and the Obama Administration. Thus we have him mouthing the language of peace while rejecting any moves toward it.

Israel's hard-line prime minister-designate, Binyamin Netanyahu, promised Sunday to work with the United States to promote peace in the region as he sought to forge a moderate government with his chief rival -- but did not reach a deal.

Netanyahu's crucial meeting with the centrist Tzipi Livni was intended to persuade her to ally with him in forming a new government and avoid an unwelcome coalition with ultra-nationalists to his right.

But after their meeting, Livni said the two remained at odds regarding talks with the Palestinians.

"We didn't reach any agreement. There are deep disagreements on this issue," she said. "This evening did not progress us on the core issues in a way that we can talk about a joint path."

I give Netanyahu six months, provided he can actually get a government assembled at all. He's just not that good a politician and he proved that in the 1990s. And his global partners are dwindling, especially with his retrograde stance on settlement expansion.

In related news, Joe Lieberman met with his namesake in Israel, Avigdor Lieberman, and had nothing but kind words for him. This is the guy who MARTIN PERETZ calls an unrequited racist. Joe Lieberman just gets classier every day...

A Few Good Allies

We know that 13 Senators voted to strip Joe Lieberman's committee chair yesterday. Published reports before and after the vote listed Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders as opposed. Now we can add Jeff Merkley:

U.S. Senator-elect Jeff Merkley (D-Portland) spoke up in a Senate Democratic caucus meeting on Tuesday regarding whether U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) would be stripped of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee after he supported former presidential candidate John McCain in the November election [...]

“Jeff Merkley did speak at the meeting, and he expressed how profoundly disappointed he was with Lieberman’s actions,” Edwards said, adding that Merkley said he had been a big supporter of the Connecticut Senator when he was a vice presidential candidate in 2000, and that thousands of Oregon Democratic volunteers worked tirelessly on his behalf. “He also believes that the chairmanship is not an entitlement, it’s a privilege.”

And Barbara Boxer:

The resolution that passed today did not reflect Senator Boxer's belief that Senator Lieberman should remain in the Democratic caucus but not retain his full Committee Chairmanship- she voted accordingly.

Good votes by both of them. In a Senate where one member holds a tremendous amount of influence, it's going to be important in the future to cultivate these relationships.

...also important to note that President-elect Obama clearly wanted Lieberman to remain in the caucus and by proxy in the committee chair, so these two were willing to buck the leader of their party on this vote. That kind of independence is frankly needed from the legislative branch.

Lying Us Into War Has Its Privileges

Just to put a coda on today's heartfelt welcoming back of Joe Lieberman to the Democratic caucus (I swear, all this bipartisanship and comity brings a tear to my eye), let's go over one loose end that Mr. Connecticut for Lieberman hyped endlessly throughout the election season. It was considered absolute by him that Iran was supplying weapons to Iraqi militia that were using them to murder American soldiers. This was the basis for the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment, which threatened to "combat, contain and stop" Iran if they continued these efforts against coalition forces. In fact, Kyl-Lieberman contained as evidence this language:

(2) Ambassador Ryan Crocker, United States Ambassador to Iraq, stated in testimony before a joint session of the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the House of Representatives on September 10, 2007, that "Iran plays a harmful role in Iraq. While claiming to support Iraq in its transition, Iran has actively undermined it by providing lethal capabilities to the enemies of the Iraqi state."

(3) The most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, published in August 2007, states that "Iran has been intensifying aspects of its lethal support for select groups of Iraqi Shia militants, particularly the JAM [Jaysh al-Mahdi], since at least the beginning of 2006. Explosively formed penetrator (EFP) attacks have risen dramatically."

(4) The Report of the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq, released on September 6, 2007, states that "[t]he Commission concludes that the evidence of Iran's increasing activism in the southeastern part of the country, including Basra and Diyala provinces, is compelling... It is an accepted fact that most of the sophisticated weapons being used to 'defeat' out armor protection comes across the border from Iran with relative impunity."

Set aside for a moment the fact that the current government in Baghdad is actively supported by Iran, and that Tehran was "in the room" during the recent negotiations on the status of forces agreement. Let's focus on the fact that Lieberman was promoting this idea that Iran was supplying lethal weapons to Iraqi militias to kill American troops, an act of provocation that he was willing to go to war over to stop.

(CBS) The United States should launch military strikes against Iran if the government in Tehran does not stop supplying anti-American forces in Iraq, Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday on Face The Nation.

"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Lieberman told Bob Schieffer. "And to me, that would include a strike into... over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers."

Funny story about those Iranian weapons - they were a complete fabrication, representing an infinitesimal fraction of the weapons used in Iraq.

According to the data compiled by the task force, and made available to an academic research project last July, only 70 weapons believed to have been manufactured in Iran had been found in post-invasion weapons caches between mid-February and the second week in April. And those weapons represented only 17 percent of the weapons found in caches that had any Iranian weapons in them during that period.

The actual proportion of Iranian-made weapons to total weapons found, however, was significantly lower than that, because the task force was finding many more weapons caches in Shi'a areas that did not have any Iranian weapons in them.

The task force database identified 98 caches over the five-month period with at least one Iranian weapon, excluding caches believed to have been hidden prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion.

But according to an e-mail from the MNFI press desk this week, the task force found and analysed a total of roughly 4,600 weapons caches during that same period.

The caches that included Iranian weapons thus represented just 2 percent of all caches found. That means Iranian-made weapons were a fraction of one percent of the total weapons found in Shi'a militia caches during that period.

The extremely small proportion of Iranian arms in Shi'a militia weapons caches further suggests that Shi'a militia fighters in Iraq had been getting weapons from local and international arms markets rather than from an official Iranian-sponsored smuggling network.

These were pretty obvious lies, considering that the military could never manage to give a coherent briefing about the origin of those Iranian weapons. But there was one man in the US Congress willing to believe these lies and pass a resolution seeking to escalate tensions with Iran over them - Joe Lieberman. This false narrative of Iraqi arms running pushed us to the brink of yet another war based on erroneous information.

For this, George Bush was used as the foil throughout Barack Obama's Presidential campaign and one of the key reasons he will be 44th President. For this, Joe Lieberman got his Homeland Security Committee gavel and a hug.

And this is the kind of fearmongering, overhyping and agenda-driven bluster you can expect coming out of the Homeland Security Committee, in the name of "protecting Americans," over the next 2-4 years.

Can't say you weren't warned.

Lieberman Letter Very Strongly Worded

Suck. On. This.

WASHINGTON – Sen. Joe Lieberman will keep his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee despite hard feelings over his support for GOP nominee John McCain during the presidential campaign.

The Connecticut independent will lose a minor panel post as punishment for criticizing Obama this fall.

Lieberman's colleagues in the Democratic caucus voted 42-13 Tuesday to approve a resolution condemning statements made by Lieberman during the campaign but allowing him to keep the Homeland Security Committee gavel. He will leave the Environment and Public Works panel, however.

I'm sure that condemnation cut him to the quick.

I was never that interested in saving Obama or the Democratic caucus from the mole in their midst, if they weren't interested in saving themselves. I do think it will ultimately have negative consequences, but it's their own fault. And I'll take no pleasure in being right.

Quite an auspicious debut for the newly powerful Democratic caucus.

...what Jane Hamsher said.

I hope this puts to rest the notion that this is all some master stroke of kumbayah, of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.

This is about telling you that you mean nothing. That democracy is a nice word, but it should never threaten the entitlement of the most exclusive club in the world.

No matter what Joe Lieberman does, the people who are protecting him hate you much more than they hate him.

...I didn't realize that Lieberman wasn't just taken off a subcommittee panel of the Environment and Public Works Committee, but taken off the committee entirely. While some are saying that this is a meaningless punishment because Lieberman doesn't have differences with Democrats on climate change, that's not entirely true. His Lieberman-Warner climate bill was an awful giveaway to polluters because it didn't sell carbon credits 100% at auction, which Obama favors. If he's replaced by, say, Jeff Merkley on that committee, it does shift it to the left.

Joe's Staying

Continuing on the theme of sabotage, this time self-sabotage, Senate Democrats have no stomach to strip Joe Lieberman from his committee chairmanship.

According to sources familiar with negotiations, Democrats are expected to vote in favor of letting the Connecticut senator keep his chairmanship and seniority, but give up the gavel on a subcommittee he chairs. The vote happens tomorrow morning by secret ballot.

The tide turned in Lieberman's favor, sources say, after two events in recent weeks. First, President-elect Obama told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that he wanted Lieberman to stay in the Democratic caucus. Later, in a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Lieberman told him it would be "unacceptable" for him to give up his gavel. That was considered by some as a veiled threat that Lieberman would jump to caucus with Republicans if he was forced to give up the gavel.

Obama tipped the scales in Lieberman's favor, one source said. The source essentially explained it like this: If the wrath was directed at Obama and got over it, shouldn't the Democratic caucus do the same?

So bipartisan hope and unity has put a rival in charge of the committee that can seek to subpoena anyone in the Obama Administration. That's really his problem, which is why I viewed this with not much more than contempt. Too many Senate Dems are basically spineless and their little club is very exclusive, so I wouldn't have ever expected them to do something so partisan. They're going to have to deal with the consequences, too. What Markos said:

If this is the "starting point", and given the Senate Democrats' history of capitulations, expect Lieberman to come out of that meeting as majority leader.

Hehindeedy.

Worm Turning?

Joe Lieberman is maybe starting to lose some support on Capitol Hill. Byron Dorgan called his actions unacceptable over the weekend. And one of the Senators making calls on his behalf, Tom Carper, thinks something needs to be done.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a close ally of Sen. Joe Lieberman, said the Connecticut Independent should pay a price for his campaign attacks against President-elect Barack Obama.

"There need to be consequences, and they cannot be insignificant," Carper said in a Monday interview with The Hill.

I wouldn't put a lot into this. The vote tomorrow will be by secret ballot and it will be difficult after the fact to extract any sort of consequences from those who vote for him to retain the Homeland Security Committee. There are a few willing to make public statements, but most have clammed up, and I expect tomorrow to see a lot of go-along to get-along from Senate Democrats. And after the vote, there will be a lot of calls for calm, that the issue is a settled matter and we now must move forward with the new agenda. And you'll be more hard pressed to find a Senator who voted to keep Lieberman in charge of the committee than an African-American who voted for McCain. I agree with Josh Orton that it makes policy sense to put a Homeland Security Committee chair who actually seems to care about fulfilling his responsibility, but that's not how this will be decided. It's a political play and Senate Dems don't seem willing to expel anyone from their little club. It would be too nasty and partisan.

Cracks In The Facade

I guess not EVERYONE is enamored of comity and bipartisanship as a cover for backstabbing and despicable behavior. First, Patrick Leahy announced his opposition to Joe Lieberman keeping his committee chairmanship.

Money quote #1: "I’m one who does not feel somebody should be rewarded with a major chairmanship after doing what he did.."

Money quote #2: But I felt that some of the attacks that he was involved in against Senator Obama .... I thought they went way beyond the pale, that they were not fair, that they were not legitimate, that they perpetuated some of these horrible myths that were run about Senator Obama

Money quote #3: I would feel that had I done something similar that I would not be Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the next Congress.

That's the key. You can look at the committee assignments as basically the spoils for the victor. Lieberman lost. He ran against the nominee of the party and some of its Senate candidates. And yet somehow, people want to reward him for that behavior with a committee chair.

Not Leahy. And not Bernie Sanders either.

"To reward Senator Lieberman with a major committee chairmanship would be a slap in the face of millions of Americans who worked tirelessly for Barack Obama and who want to see real change in our country," Sanders in the statement sent our way by his office.

"Appointing someone to a major post who led the opposition to everything we are fighting for is not 'change we can believe in,'" Sanders continued. "I very much hope that Senator Lieberman stays in the Democratic caucus and is successful in regaining the confidence of those whom he has disappointed. This is not a time, however, in which he should be rewarded with a major committee chairmanship."

Joe Lieberman is an unpopular figure in Connecticut, too, not just among Vermont Senators. His re-elect number is only 35. Ned Lamont would crush him if the election were held today. What Markos said:

So Lieberman can threaten all he wants to caucus with Republicans if he doesn't get everything he wants. Fact is, he's in shaky electoral territory, and it would only get worse if he decided to become a Republican.

Call his bluff. Give him another committee chairmanship in an area where his ideology matches up with the Democratic Party. He won't leave the Democratic caucus. It would be career suicide.

No one likes Joe except for Republicans, yet there are the Senate Dems, once again ready to capitulate. Apparently, old habits die hard.

But maybe they'll prove us wrong and do the right thing.

At least two of them will.

Evan Bayh: Dupe

I actually watched this last night, and it was pathetic:

BAYH: I don't think this is about Joe Lieberman, Rachel. I think this is about maximizing our chances of making the changes that we need in America, maximizing the chances that President-elect Obama will meet those expectations you referred to by addressing the challenges that we face that you also reported on just a few moments ago.

And let me explain to you what I mean. If this was just about Joe Lieberman and the things he said in the campaign, well, I'd say we'll let it go. I mean, if people want to settle scores, fine. I mean, he's a big guy, he can live with the consequences of his actions.

But one of two things will be likely to happen if we were to kick him out of his chairmanship. No. 1, he might very well decide to just resign from the Senate. You know, he probably would not want to be a person without a home, wandering the hallways without any influence of any kind. And Connecticut has a Republican governor, who would appoint a pure Republican to that seat, who would vote against the wishes of the president-elect and the Democratic caucus, you know, the vast, vast majority of the time. That's No. 1.

No. 2, Lieberman, Joe Lieberman might decide to stay and be embittered. And what would happen there would be from time to time, we have close votes. You've been reporting on the Alaska race and the Minnesota race and the Georgia race. We could be at 58, 59, maybe even 60 votes. Every two or three or four months, there's going to be a critically important vote, very close, every vote will count. And it might come down to one vote.

Now, if Senator Lieberman has a strong view, he'll vote his conscience, but if he's conflicted, frankly, you know, doesn't really
know what to do, and we've exacted revenge on him, I suspect we could probably expect the same in return. That's really not where we want to go. Let's see if we can move this in a better direction.

And the final thing I'd say is, if he does retain his chairmanship, we still exert oversight over him and control over him. He doesn't have the ability to just do whatever he wants. The caucus still has the right to remove him from that position at any time if he starts going off on some kind of tangent.

Shorter Evan Bayh: we're a-feared of Droopy Dog!

If Senate Dems can't defend themselves, I really don't see why I should expend any effort helping to defend them. The danger of Lieberman at Homeland Security, as I see it, is that he'll play "fun with subpoenas" on the Obama Administration. Well, let him. Obama doesn't seem too concerned with it, so why should I be? And under no circumstances should Lieberman be tossed after given the gavel if he does anything untoward. Senate Dems will have had their chance, and stifling Joe after the fact would just be the same instance of using the Congress as a human shield for executive power, much as the Hastert/Frist Congress did from 2001-2006. In fact there's a Constitutional argument to be made that at least a confrontational Joe would be a check on the executive. It'll all be frivolous and based on faulty logic, but at this point any check might be beneficial.

As for appeasing him (Neville Chamberlains!) because he might go ahead and vote against the party, if I'm a sanctimonious windbag like Joe Lieberman I'm probably already embittered by having to fight for my chairmanship, so whether I get to keep it or not I'm going to be a thorn in the side of the Democrats. After all, it's in my nature. And furthermore, important legislation rarely hangs on one vote, and each victory in these remaining races makes Joe that much more irrelevant.

I could tell you to call your Senators but I'm not really interested in helping dupes.

Establishment Circles The Wagons Around Lieberman

Chris Bowers wrote yesterday that, with a vote next week on Joe Lieberman's chairmanship on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, it was time to set up a whip count. However, he based a portion of it on Howard Fineman's report that Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer wanted Lieberman booted. ANd now Fineman has come out and said the opposite:

FINEMAN: Senator Dick Durbin is a key factor there and I think he's moving toward allowing Lieberman to stay. Dick Durbin was somebody who was extremely angry at Lieberman for campaigning for John McCain.

But I'm now told after having gone through a horrible week or so, where he was mourning the death of his 40-year-old daughter to congenital heart disease, he's come out of that and looked around and, also, heard what Barack Obama has had to say, and Durbin is now saying he's willing to give Lieberman a chance.

I think that's going to go to a vote next week but I bet that Lieberman gets to keep his committee chairmanship because Obama has signaled that he wants him to.

I think liberal bloggers are in denial about this. Many are saying that Obama didn't signal that Lieberman stays in the chairmanship, but the sequence of events pretty clearly suggests that he did. Lieberman balked at losing the chairmanship and threatened to bolt the party, and then Obama, through aides, said he wants Lieberman kept in the party. As President it's not his decision to make, but it's hard to see that as not exerting influence. And Durbin is Obama's chief ally in the Senate.

Obviously, the Senate, which is a clubby, insider organization, doesn't want to punish Lieberman because they don't see the upside in it. They think in terms of getting cloture votes, and Lieberman can help at the margins, so there's no need to irritate him. What they don't feel pressured by is any downside, and that's where the progressive community comes in. We have to keep making calls and let these Senators know that our memories will be long and our wallets suddenly tight if nothing is done to Lieberman.

But ultimately, this is up to the Senators themselves. If they want to project an attitude of lacking self-respect, of allowing a member of their caucus to endorse the opposing Presidential candidate, make all sorts of slanders and accusations against their standard-bearer, and welcome him back with open arms, it's really on them. And the mischief he ends up causing will be their doing. I will let my representatives know how I feel, but I'm kind of tired of protecting them from their own actions.

UPDATE: Politico has more. The establishment figures are whipping support for Lieberman. They'll only be stopped if we choose to make our voices heard.

Neutralize Lieberman - Jim Martin For Senate

Today is Veteran's Day, and six years ago, Saxby Chambliss perpetrated one of the more cowardly and despicable attacks on a veteran in recent political history, accusing multiple-amputee Max Cleland of disloyalty and producing an ad connecting him to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden (the core of the charge was because Cleland favored union rights for Department of Homeland Security employees, by the way - so it was an anti-union smear as much as it was a national security smear). Here's what one prominent politician had to say about it:

"I'd never seen anything like that ad. Putting pictures of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden next to the picture of a man who left three limbs on the battlefield -- it's worse than disgraceful. It's reprehensible."

That was John McCain, who is later this month headed to Georgia to campaign with Chambliss in his runoff election against Jim Martin.

At least he still has his principles, right?

I will say that Saxby Chambliss is at least consistent. His contempt for veterans in the political arena is matched by his opposition to them on the floor of the Senate, voting against funding for the new GI Bill, traumatic brain injury research, proper amounts of time between deployments, and dozens of other initiatives.

Now, Chambliss is facing Jim Martin, an Army veteran who served one tour of duty in Vietnam. Neither candidate reached 50% in the November election, so there is a December 2 runoff scheduled. Barack Obama is sending aides to Georgia to work on the campaign, which will undoubtedly come down to turnout, and now it's our turn. On Veteran's Day, bloggers are having a national day of action to raise money and awareness for Martin. There are scattered events planned across the country, but you can visit this ActBlue page and give to Martin directly. Considering that not just McCain but Mike Huckabee and even Sarah Palin are scheduled to rush to Chambliss' aid, it's a chance to humiliate them once again.

But I want to look at it another way. The Georgia seat was not expected to be Democratic this year. Picking this one up in extra innings adds a vote on a variety of substantive issues - Martin looks to be pretty solid. And so all the wonder about Joe Lieberman's status in the caucus would be made somewhat irrelevant. His bad vote on the war? Cancelled out by Martin's? Veteran's issues? The same. His bad positions on economic stimulus and other progressive issues? Martin would likely nullify those as well. His chairmanship of the Homeland Security committee? Lieberman shouldn't have it, but Democrats are nearing a tipping point where they would gain extra seats on these committees (they are proportionally distributed), and thus it's possible that adding Martin to the Senate would put enough Democrats on that committee to vote down any frivolous subpoenas Lieberman might be itching to issue.

The best way we can neutralize Joe Lieberman is to put more Democrats in the Senate and marginalize his voice. Help out Jim Martin today.

Bloggers for Martin

That's Not Change We Can Believe In

Barack Obama is telling the Democratic leadership in the Senate that they should keep Joe Lieberman in the caucus. President Clinton is apparently making calls on Lieberman's behalf as well.

The only positive thing about this is that the Senate Democrats are off the hook for the decision. Obama takes the heat all for himself.

But heat he should take, without question. First of all, he inserted himself in the middle of a negotiation.

Obama's decision could tie the hands of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has been negotiating to remove Lieberman as chair of the Homeland Security and Government Reform committee while keeping him within the caucus. Lieberman has insisted that he will split from the Democrats if his homeland security position is stripped.

There doesn't seem to be a way he can lose his Homeland Security spot now, so any subpoenas issued by Lieberman against an Obama administration, any fishing expeditions, they're on his head. He invited them. Lieberman may have eaten his gavel during the Bush years, but he'll find it anew. Enjoy that, Barack.

Then there's the matter of Lieberman consistently attacking Obama negatively throughout the general election. I guess Obama considers that this makes him the bigger man. But I'm with Digby. This is one enemy you ought not keep closer.

It's a huge mistake to keep him in the caucus where he will have knowledge of their strategy and legislative tactics. He will be the first one called upon to "speak for" Democrats who are unhappy with Obama's inevitable "overreaching." He is a mole for the Republican party.

This also comes at a time when progressives were ramping up efforts to push activism on behalf of jettisoning Lieberman. Firedoglake has a Just Say No To Joe tool that will call your Senators for you and let you deliver a message that he should not keep his committee assignments.



And Bold Progressives had set up events at Senate offices in three states. That activism can continue, as the Senate decides its own committee assignments, but clearly Obama is going to have a lot of pull here.

So the shitting on the base begins. This is a relatively benign shit, since the only person who's going to end up harmed is Obama himself - it's a self-inflicted wound. But it's definitely shitting. And if the 50-state strategy is truly dead, about which there are conflicting reports (Howard Dean is definitely stepping down as DNC chair), that one is much more malevolent. There's simply no reason to stop organizing at this point, and put into storage the program that benefited state parties so much over the last two campaign cycles.

And to think I was in a good mood...

Negotiating With Himself

It's funny, Joe Lieberman thinks he's some kind of bonus baby who can get a luxury car and a sweet penthouse apartment overlooking the National Mall out of either caucus in the Senate. At this rate he won't be satisfied until he's Majority Leader. The only problem is that nobody wants to offer him anything.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has reached out to Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) about the prospect of joining the Republican Conference, but Lieberman is still bargaining with Democratic leaders to keep his chairmanship, according to Senate aides in both parties.

“Sen. Lieberman’s preference is to stay in the caucus, but he’s going to keep all his options open,” a Lieberman aide said. “McConnell has reached out to him, and at this stage, his position is he wants to remain in the caucus but losing the chairmanship is unacceptable.”

A Republican Senate aide said Friday morning that there was little McConnell could offer in terms of high-ranking committee slots, which is why Lieberman is resisting overtures from the Republican side [...]

Lieberman’s aide told Politico on Friday morning that “essentially what transpired is that Sen. Reid talked about taking away his position perhaps for another position, and Sen. Lieberman indicated that was unacceptable.”

A person with direct knowledge of the Reid-Lieberman meeting yesterday on Capitol Hill said Reid turned to Lieberman at one point and said, "I prefer to work this out" after Lieberman hinted he would "explore his options" with Republicans if he was stripped of the committee.

Hilarious. Like he has clout. Lieberman would end up being a headache on either side of the aisle - a mole on the Democratic side, a Judas on the increasingly extremist Republican side. What's more, Republicans don't have any committee chairmanships to hand out, either. And nobody's going to put their seniority aside for him.

Of course, his operatives have one goal - to make it look like bolting for the Republicans would make any difference whatsoever, fooling accommodationist Dems into reverting to measures of conciliation and healing. They've already snookered Evan Bayh, who's eminently snooker-able.

BAYH: And I think if Joe came before the caucus and said look, if I said some things that came as offensive, I’m sorry, but they were, you know heartfelt in my support of John McCain. I think we had to just let bygones be bygones. We’re going to need him on healthcare and energy independence and education and a whole lot of other things.

Bayh concluded that Lieberman is “strong on national security.” “And we’re going to prove that there is a place for Democrats who are strong on national security in the Democratic Party,” he said.

I hope I miss when I try to shoot myself shortly after posting this.

If we do nothing, Lieberman will be welcomed back into the party, and they'll probably throw a brunch in his honor. If we call these Senators and let them know that a mole chairing the main oversight committee in the Senate is unacceptable, maybe they won't be so keen to allow it. If after getting stripped on his chairmanship, Lieberman wants to stay in the party, I personally think that's up to him. But making sure he isn't a one-man subpoena machine is the bare minimum of accountability that we should expect.

The number for the Capitol switchboard is (202) 224-3121. Start with your own Senator, but call the more conservative members of the caucus too. Ask whether they support Lieberman remaining as Chair of the Homeland Security committee, given his unfair attacks on President-elect Obama. Be polite, and calm. The young people who answer the phones are entry-level staffers.

Post what you hear in the comments. Let's outflank Lieberman.

On Bended Knee

Joe Lieberman is begging to stay relevant:

Bolstered by a newly expanded majority, Harry Reid met with Joe Lieberman on Thursday to sketch out the conditions by which the Connecticut independent could continue to caucus with Senate Democrats. But Lieberman did not accept Reid's initial offers, leaving his future in the caucus uncertain, and potentially setting off a campaign to pressure the Democratic steering committee to decide Lieberman's fate.

Reid offered Lieberman a deal to step down as chairman of the homeland security committee but take over the reins of another subcommittee, likely overseeing economic or small business issues officials said.

Immediately after his meeting with Reid, Lieberman told reporters that he had not made a decision about his future in the caucus, and appeared to launch his first public appeal to members of the Democratic steering committee, whose members decide committee chair assignments.

"I completely agree with President-elect Obama that we must now unite to get our economy going again and to keep the American people safe. that is exactly what I intend to do with my colleagues here in the Senate in support of our new president, and those are the standards I will use in considering the options that I have before me," Lieberman told reporters.

The thing is that Lieberman has very little leverage. There is no reason that Reid could possibly keep someone who continually defamed Barack Obama in the chairmanship of the committee that would oversee the White House. What's more, he was terrible at his job in the 110th Congress, practically never holding any oversight hearings. He's dead weight on the committee.

Lieberman is in no position to demand anything. He's not the crucial 60th vote, and he's never going to get re-elected in Connecticut. In the Republican caucus he'd be a minority of the minority, and the mouth-breathers would quickly tire of his moderate positions on certain issues. Reid has all the leverage and he ought to pull the trigger.

Here's Jane Hamsher:

My guess? Reid told him he can stay in the caucus if he steps down from his committee chairmanship (a campaign we started shortly after the 2006 election, thanks to everyone who participated with pitchforks and torches). I imagine Reid told him they'll wait to do anything until the other Senate races are decided, but that's the way it's going to go down. Those are the rather well-source rumors circulating, anyway.

Joe now goes to see if he can get a better deal from the GOP, knowing his chances of winning in Connecticut as a Republican in 2012 are about "zero."

What the heck could he possibly "get" from an even more ideologically rigid GOP? A ranking membership? The internal dissension would be enormous.

Reid is walking down the right path here, but he'd better watch it. It's bad enough that a swing-state Senator is in charge of the caucus to begin with. If he cozies up to Lieberman after all this, the outrage would be palpable.

America's Asshole

Joe Lieberman, everyone:

BECK: But do you agree that Senator Hatch said to me that if we don’t at least have the firewall of the filibuster in the Senate that in many ways America will not survive?

LIEBERMAN: Well, I hope it’s not like that, but I fear.

Lieberman also hinted that next session, he would be supportive of conservative efforts to filibuster progressive legislation. Lieberman said that the filibuster is a “key” to stop such “passions of the moment”:

LIEBERMAN: And I think the filibuster is the key. You know, it gets a bad name, but it was really put there, a 60-vote requirement, to, as somebody said to me when I first came to the Senate, stop the passions of a moment among the people of America from sweeping across the Congress, the House, through the Senate, to a like-minded President and having us do things that will change America for a long time. So the filibuster is one of the important protections we have.

"Protections" from such things as giving kids healthcare, getting our troops out of Iraq, building the new energy infrastructure of the future, you know, "dangerous" things like that.

If anyone's counting Democratic numbers in the Senate, be sure not to include Lieberman on our side. He's telling you right here that he's not.