Preserve My Chairmanship Or Die!
by Todd Beeton, Sun Nov 09, 2008 at 02:22:19 PM EST
I suppose it was inevitable that Joe Lieberman would take the fear-mongering he used against Obama in the general, which mirrored the Rovian "elect Republicans or die" strategy that worked so well for the GOP in 02 & 04, and use it in his campaign to keep his chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Greg Sargent has a good catch from this Hartford Courant article:
"Sen. Lieberman prefers to remain in the Democratic caucus," the aide said. "However, he believes he should remain as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. ... He thinks that political retribution should not go ahead of homeland security."
Funny, considering the man Lieberman supported for president advocated a foreign policy that has made us less secure at home and abroad. But as Sargent notes, it's just plain absurd for him to even suggest that just because he's chairman of the Homeland Security Committee that he is somehow our protector-in-chief.
Can the Lieberman camp really be arguing that stripping Lieberman of his committee slot is tantamount to putting politics ahead of our safety, because we're so defenseless without him there to protect us?
But looking at the larger issue of Lieberman's role in the Senate, we're getting some pretty clear signals that his leaving the Democratic caucus is not likely to happen, at least not by force. Even Sen. Reid today sounded a conciliatory note:
While he has opposed Democratic efforts to end the war in Iraq, "Joe Lieberman votes with me a lot more than a lot of my senators," Reid told CNN's "Late Edition.""Joe Lieberman is not some right-wing nutcase," he said. "Joe Lieberman is one of the most progressive people ever to come from the state of Connecticut."
As did Sen. Dodd:
"What does Barack Obama want?" Dodd rhetorically asked reporters Friday in Hartford. "He's talked about reconciliation, healing, bringing people together. I don't think he'd necessarily want to spend the first month of this president-elect period, this transition period, talking about a Senate seat, particularly if someone is willing to come forward and is willing to be a member of your family in the caucus in that sense."
Fine, keep him in the caucus, it's not like caucusing with the Republicans makes sense for him on any level, but allowing him to keep his chairmanship is unacceptable.
What Josh said:
So Lieberman's entitled to his policy differences - but it's absolutely unacceptable for Joe to maintain oversight of a powerful committee with jurisdiction over the subject he used to attack Democrats.
Continue to put pressure on your Senators to oppose Lieberman's maintaining his chairmanship and sign the petition to the Senate Steering Committee to strip Lieberman of his chairmanship today.
Tags: Joe Lieberman (all tags)
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