Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack appears to be on track for unanimous confirmation by the Senate as Secretary of Agriculture in Barack Obama's cabinet. At his confirmation hearing yesterday, Republicans didn't ask hostile questions, and Vilsack didn't have to explain away any embarrassing behavior like Treasury Secretary-nominee Timothy Geithner's failure to fully meet his tax obligations over a period of years.

Despite the lack of drama, Vilsack made a number of noteworthy comments during the hearing. Join me after the jump for some highlights and analysis.

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A big step: Leahy, chair of the powerful Judiciary Committee, has come out against Lieberman keeping his gavel atop Homeland Security (via TPM):

"Every Senator will have to vote the way he or she believes they should," Leahy said, in a reference to the upcoming vote on Lieberman's fate in the Dem caucus next week. "I'm one who does not feel that somebody should be rewarded with a major chairmanship after doing what he did."

"I felt some of the attacks that he was involved in against Senator Obama...went way beyond the pale," Leahy continued. "I thought they were not fair, I thought they were not legitimate, I thought they perpetuated some of these horrible myths that were being run about Senator Obama."

"I would feel that had I done something similar," Leahy concluded, "that I would not be chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the next Congress."

Leahy nails it: in any normal world, it makes perfect sense for Lieberman to lose his chairmanship of such a powerful committee. But this is Lieberworld, where comity always comes first, and bad faith is ignored willfully.

Remember - Lieberman is chair of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee specifically because of his seniority in the Democratic party. Does it really make sense for him to continue enjoying that same seniority in the party he attacked? And atop the committee whose subject matter he used as ammunition?

And on her show last night, Rachel Maddow delivers the succinct argument for why Lieberman probably can't be trusted with subpoena power:

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posted by permission of the writer, Geekesque

There are four current Senators who are running for the Democratic nomination for President.

There have developed two competing narratives regarding these four Senators and their relative levels of experience.

One holds that the most junior of the four, Barack Obama, is a naive, inexperienced, even reckless in his judgment and his language, while Hillary Clinton, Christopher Dodd, and Joe Biden have shown sound judgment and have the experience necessary to be commander-in-chief.

The other narrative states that Obama has more than enough experience to give him sound judgment, and that his disagreement with the other three is based not on inexperience but a refusal to accept erroneous conventional wisdom.

A further examination of these competing claims within two specific votes below the fold.

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Big news from the Green Mountain State.

The Vermont Guardian reports:

The Vermont Senate this morning approved by a 16-9 margin a resolution calling on the U.S. House to launch impeachment proceedings of Pres. George W. Bush and Vice Pres. Dick Cheney.

The Vermont Senate is the first state legislative body in the country to call on Congress to begin impeachment proceedings. Impeachment resolutions are currently active in Hawaii, Missouri, New Jersey, and Washington. A measure in New Mexico was quashed earlier this year.

The move comes just days after nearly 150 people from around Vermont converged on Montpelier to urge lawmakers to pass such a resolution out of the House and Senate. The emotionally-charged, 40-minute meeting left backers hopeful that something could happen this session.

Today's resolution was introduced by Senate Pres. Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, and Sen. Jeannette White, D-Windham. The process began last night when Senate Majority Leader Dick McCormick, D-Windsor, introduced a resolution. However, his resolution did not include Cheney. The resolution by Shumlin and White did include Cheney.

The vote took place early in the morning and was over in less than a half hour.

The Senate version now goes to Washington and if the Vermont House passes theirs by the end of the session, expect this to send an even stronger message and send ripples throughout the country and beyond.

As ABC Sports Al Michaels once said, "DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?.

Vermonters do.

For more great coverage check out the rest of the Vermont Guardian story and the one and only Green Mountain Daily.

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Best-selling author and The Nation Washington correspondent John Nichols visited Brattleboro last week to talk on the necessity to investigate President George W. Bush and remove him from office. His new book is The Genius of Impeachment: The Founder' Cure for Royalism and the book provides a hidden history of an American institution: the peoples' right to impeach our elected leaders. The Genius of Impeachment reveals how impeachment movements played a fundemental role American history and Nichols' book credits Vermont in his last chapter - "What then From Newfane?"- for lighting the fuse that sparked a nation-wide impeachment movement. John Nichols has been on a nationwide book tour and wanted to end it in the heart of the impeachment movement, Windham County. I caught up with Nichols after the event to talk more about the latest developments, misconceptions about impeachment, and the role Vermont plays.

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