by Damozel | As I wrote earlier today, I wasn't really expecting a different outcome, much as I don't want Lieberman remaining in charge of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Frankly, any excuse to relieve him of his gavel would have been good enough for me. But....politics as usual, as expected.
Others seem to have been genuinely shaken, judging by Jane Hamsher's response.
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.
Howard Dean sees it differently. Obama's all about the unity and so the Democratic party is all about the unity.
What's the point, one wonders, of having a Congress at all if they are going to let the President-elect tell them how to run their side of the separate powers? Not that I believe it was really about Obama or what he wants. I am pretty sure it is about the Democratic caucus and the other kids in the club.
Dean makes it about Obama and his wish to be magnanimous, while explaining that it really is mainly about politics. Like everyone else, he pretends that it was a choice between Lieberman voting with the Dems (or even caucusing with them) and retaining his position as Chair for the Homeland Security Committee.
"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." (TPM via Memeorandum)
But chair or no chair, he could have ended up being that vote anyway, not that---as Dean concedes---he probably will. Why should he?
And---again---it isn't about what Obama wants, so people need to start bringing him up. Swampland has a list of Lieberman's remarks on the campaign trail when he was collaborating with McCain's far right platform. Offensive as they are, they aren't the point. The point was the collaboration---the point was that Lieberman, in promoting McCain, was endorsing all his right-wing positions plus his judgment that Sarah Palin was good enough for America.
It's not that he campaigned against Obama, it's that he showed where he stands, and it's not in a good place for someone in charge of the Homeland Security Committee. Why would you let someone who endorses the views expressed by McCain in charge of such a critical committee?
You can read here a conversation between Dean, Hamsher, and other leading lights of the progressosphere, during which Dean called Lieberman's behavior "frankly unprincipled" and immediately said that "frankly unprincipled" shouldn't "divide us." What?
Hamsher responded with the essential point:
JANE HAMSHER: But the tone we just set, with all due respect, is that Joe's lack of oversight on the Homeland Security Committee, and his refusing to investigate Katrina to pay back the Republicans, and his refusal to look into billions and billions of dollars worth of graft and theft is okay for political considerations. I think that's the message you're sending and I don't think that's the change people voted for.
To which Dean eventually replied:
Look I'm not going to a dispute with you over that, because it sounds like you know his record much better than I. I never looked into what he was doing as the Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. I was too busy figuring out how to win the election. So I don't want to get into a debate on whether he's qualified or not.(emphasis in original)
As for the "Barack is Unity" argument, Greenwald isn't buying any of it. As he points out, we've had bipartisanship along, despite all the rhetoric and the surface wrangling. In fact, Congress has been all too bipartisan, with the Dems clearly cowed by right-wing bloviating, finger-pointing, finger-wagging, and taunting.
Where is the evidence of the supposed partisan wrangling that we hear so much about? Just examine the question dispassionately. Look at every major Bush initiative, every controversial signature Bush policy over the last eight years, and one finds virtually nothing but massive bipartisan support for them -- the Patriot Act (original enactment and its renewal); the invasion of Afghanistan; the attack on, and ongoing occupation of, Iraq; the Military Commissions Act (authorizing enhanced interrogation techniques, abolishing habeas corpus, and immunizing war criminals); expansions of warrantless eavesdropping and telecom immunity; declaring part of Iran's government to be "terrorists"; our one-sided policy toward Israel; the $700 billion bailout; The No Child Left Behind Act, "bankruptcy reform," and on and on.
Most of those were all enacted with virtually unanimous GOP support and substantial, sometimes overwhelming, Democratic support: the very definition of "bipartisanship." That's just a fact.
Moreover, Bush's appointments of judges were barely ever impeded, resulting in a radical transformation of the federal courts. Other than John Bolton and Steven Bradbury, not a single significant Bush nominee was blocked. Those who implemented Bush's NSA program (Michael Hayden) and authorized his torture program (Alberto Gonzales) were confirmed for promotions.
The Bush administration committed war crimes, broke long-standing surveillance laws, politicized prosecutions, and explicitly claimed the right to break our laws, yet Congress did nothing about any of that except to authorize most of it, and investigated virtually none of it. With regard to many of those transgressions, key Democratic leaders were briefed at the time they were implemented and quietly acquiesced, did nothing to stop any of it. Both parties are in virtually unanimous agreement that our highest political leaders should be exempt from accountability under the rule of law even for the grave crimes that have been committed.
Unity for its own sake means that principles, as now, go out the window. But that's where principles always go when it comes to our elected officials. 'Twas ever thus.
Why pretend I'm shocked when I'm not shocked? Because I'm not shocked.
I do wonder what the progressives who are upset thought Obama meant when he was going on and on about "Unity." They never seemed to make the connection between that theme and the "Change" theme.
And Dean is right that a purge on the basis of disloyalty is kind of the opposite of unity. So to whatever extent Obama's wishes had anything to do with this, this is him, doing exactly what he said.
In the meantime, if you have questions for Joe Lieberman, Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic says he'll pass them on to Katie Couric. ("Yes, really.") I'm kind of stuck on Michael Scott's (of The Office) exit interview questions:
- Who do you think you are?
- What gives you the right?
But if you've got better ones, you know where to go.
See comments by other bloggers at MEMEORANDUM.
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