The Democratic caucus today voted to keep Joe Lieberman in his chairman positions.
They also voted on a resolution that was somewhat of a reprimand from what I heard, but I have not been able to find that yet (will update when I do or someone does).
For me, this wasn’t an issue of retribution or getting back; it was one of job performance, and I thought Lieberman hadn’t done his job.
But I didn’t have a vote and I just have to hope this works out for the best.
Please share widely!
From the Environment and Public Works Committee …. they were tough on him.
I recall hearing (maybe Lieberman saying) that because of the size of the caucus now, they are enforcing a two committee limit for each member. I don’t know if anyone else is currently on three committees, but Joe has it no worse than anyone else.
they removed him from a committee where he might actually do some good, while leaving him in charge of a committee where he can be relied upon to obstruct the new president and the new Congress at every turn. Like I said, good times.
I confess I don’t follow subcommittee work very closely, but by Democratic standards Lieberman is very moderate on the environment. Sure he had a climate change bill, but by Democratic standards it was pretty middle of the road.
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p>So long as Dems have close to 60, a House, and a POTUS, I want our environmental leadership to be aggressive. We won’t have this window for long, and it’s much harder to remove environmental protection than to implement it in the first place.
Lieberman – Homeland Security Chair
Clinton – Sec of State
Rubin/Summers – Treasury (which is not to suggest that I don’t think they are both eminently qualified)
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p>What’s next? Harriet Miers for AG!!
Remember, Obama said his election only created the possibility for change …
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p>What a disappointment. The Weak Democrats live!
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p>Maybe if they had 99 Senate seats they’d feel confident.
Is Obama not as liberal as his campaign suggested? He was not in favor of taking Lieberman down. Lieberman and Clinton hold very different views on foreign policy to those I thought Obama holds. Was he doing the typical say what it takes to get elected thing and now we’re going to find out he’s a different guy?
Were you watching a different campaign then I was? Obama wasn’t campaigning as a liberal. That’s why he didn’t win the more Democratic states in the primaries. I haven’t ever expected Obama to be a real liberal. He didn’t start really campaigning as a liberal until the Republicans started calling him a socialist and he had to explain that liberalism is not the same as socialism. Obama was campaigning on competence, thoughtfulness, and bipartisanship, not ideology. Any impression that you got of Obama campaigning as a liberal was your own wishful thinking. You can’t campaign as a liberal and as a bipartisan compromiser at the same time.
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p>If you are expecting Obama to be a liberal, you should start preparing to be disappointed. Did you really expect someone that voted for telecom immunity to be in favor of government accountability? Obama has strongly implied that he doesn’t want to prosecute the Bush administration for anything. He isn’t interested in punishing people for their deliberate mistakes. That includes Lieberman.
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p>Yes, but he’s also strongly stated that “If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.” Spoken like a true heir to the Civil Rights Movement. Were you expecting something more?
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p>Every Democratic president we’ve had these past 80+ years has been pretty deeply liberal, in their genes and in their bones. This includes Barack Obama and includes party nominees like John Kerry and Al Gore. Perhaps fortuitously, or maybe just paradoxically, while liberalism informs their thinking a caution and a deliberateness informs their actions. I think most Americans think this way too. Ideologically, most Americans are deeply liberal. This country never has been, and never will be ‘center right’ on these terms. But, however liberal they may be personally, Americans, and their Democratic representatives, often wish to move forward with a sober and deliberate pace, building consensus and testing the waters. Lately, they’ve been even slower because they must often wade through an onslought of ginned-up criticism and slander. (Witness impeachment of Clinton…)
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p>I think, on the surface, the sole exception to this rule, at least in the past century, was FDR. But his circumstances were exceptional and he did make a lot of mistakes that stemmed from a desire to slow down the pace of change…
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p>For real irony that’ll truly bake your noodle consider this: every Republican president (and more than most of their candidates) while confessing a deep conservative ideology have been reckless and, not to put to fine a point on it, radical in their actions. Bush started a war on pique… Krugman uses another example from the 2004 election: Bush, after winning an election on national security and gays, turns around and says his top priority is to privatize social security. Huh? Most people never even saw that coming… The impeachment of a sitting president for minor offenses is another case of radical overreach. Reagan came into office in 1980 and eviscerated budgets for programs he deemed insufficiently conservative. This was more than bold; it was feckless.
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p>So yeah… Obama’s pretty liberal. That means he takes what you have to say as seriously as he ought: Caution and consensus proceed from that.
I knew this would happen. All you far left progressives thought you just voted for your man to lead you to the promised land and feel duped. We live in an essentially center-right country according to most polling and thats frankly why its been so tough for Democrats to win at the national level without being conservative Southern whites like Carter or Clinton or seemingly non-partisan moderates like Obama in a year when frankly no serious Democratic candidate could have lost. Basically I voted for Obama because he was a Clintonian Centrist without all the baggage that comes with the Clintons which I still feel would have dominated the election, rallied the right wing to McCain without a conservative VP allowing him to pick a Ridge or Lieberman to win over independents. McCain Clinton would have been a lot closer cause of her baggage.
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p>Obama was the most electable candidate. If you read his book you would know his rhetoric and his reasoning is essentially centrist in outlook even if his voting record is liberal. And make no bones about it he is a pure pragmatist and would have voted for the war had he been in the Senate, something he basically said back in 04′.
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p>That said he will be more progressive than Clinton because he has Congress on his side, he will appoint solid liberals to the Supreme Court, and the country has moved in our direction on economics even if its still hawkish on security and conservative on social issues. You gotta play to win baby and sometimes that means the best candidate for Middle America and thus the win is not necessarily the best candidate for the base.
Where’d you get THAT one? If that’s true, it basically undermines his entire campaign.
His 04′ Senate website basically took a non-commital stance on the war something approaching I opposed the war but currently support our President and our troops. It was vague enough that if the war went south he could say he always opposed the war or if the war became a big success distance himself from the anti-war crowd. Its notable that his anti-war speech was all about national security, distracting us from Afghanistan, distracting us from using intelligence and our resources to hunt down Al Qaeda. If you recall the 04 Dem primary he opposed the war for the reasons Blue Dog Bob Graham and Gen. Clark did, not for the reasons Howard Dean or Dennis Kucinich did-basically a right wing opposition to the war since it would stretch our military and prevent us for being hawkish where it counted.
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p>Obama never once said the war was illegal, immoral, or trading American blood for Iraqi oil. And even after that speech he distanced himself further with that statement on the website and a statement in a local interview saying he would have been pressured to vote for the war in the Senate and would have been a lot more reluctant to oppose it.
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p>That said, had he been elected Senator and gave his speech in 2000 instead of 2004 and had to cast a vote in 02 wanting to run for President in 04 or 08 he probably would’ve cast a Kerry esque vote ‘reluctantly’ ceding the authority to the President by voting for the war and he’d have been stuck making the same excuses as Hillary and John-boy. Timing is a key factor in a politicians success that we often forget.
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…and while we’re at it, shame on President-elect Obama, too, for urging that Lieberman retain his chairmanship.
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p>For goodness sake, Lieberman didn’t just support the Republican Presidential candidate…he campaigned for him and addressed the Republican National Convention on McCain’s behalf.
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p>If that isn’t grounds for his removal as a Chair, then I don’t know what is. And who cares if he bolts to the GOP? He already has for all intents and purposes.
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p>I do not believe Obama or his staff did any “urging” that he keep his chairmanship.
“Liberal bloggers have long wanted Lieberman’s head. It was an olive branch from Obama, who urged reconciliation, that likely helped him survive within Democratic ranks.”
“US News” is not Obama. What you are apparently quoting is analysis, not an Obama statement.
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p>The President-Elect did not urge fellow Dems to allow Lieberman to keep his Chairmanship. He simply stated through his spokesman that he hoped Lieberman wouldn’t leave the caucus.
US News is reporting that Obama urged reconciliation (to Reid). If you want to parse words, it does not seem literally accurate to say Obama “urged that he retain his chairmanship”. But do you seriously think if Obama wanted Lieberman out it wouldn’t have gotten done?
But the real point is that Obama’s not an idiot — he is not going to get himself directly involved in a Senatorial leadership fight, and he in fact avoided that. People claiming that Obama should have gone to the mat to boot Lieberman are way off-base.
Obama played good cop which was the right political move on his part, and the Senators (that includes you John Kerry) were supposed to play bad cop for their best political move. But the Senate democrats, as usual, screwed up.
At the start of the 2006 election cycle, Democratic Congressional candidates were told to run on domestic issues and studiously avoid the Iraq occupation. The Democratic message at the time was still pretty muddy as there were enough Democrats that were still unsure about whether invading had been a good idea and staying for another five years would be a good idea.
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p>Lieberman was part of keeping that message good and muddy.
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p>After Lamont defeated Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic primary, the Democrats suddenly found their message. They could run against the war — and win! And they did win.
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p>Even if Lamont lost the general election, Lieberman’s loss spelled the end of Democratic pusillanimity about the war and the beginning of winning Congressional majorities.
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p>So I say, getting Lieberman’s head is a good thing. It worked in 2006.
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p>It could work in 2008.
… that Obama not chopping off Joe’s head is a sign that he understands 1) the difference between winning elections and governing, 2) that surrounding oneself only with people that agree with one’s views is ill-advised and dangerous and 3) that having people in leadership positions who will stand up for the principles they believe in even in the face of significant opposition is a good thing, even if such people hold different views than you do.
What are the principles for which Lieberman has stood up?
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p>Beyond self-aggrandizement, I mean.
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p>Lieberman’s being the unDemocratic Democrat was extremely useful for getting him on the TeeVee. The press eats that kind of stuff up and Lieberman likes being on the TeeVee. Beyond that, I can’t think of anything useful he has contributed to the national security debate other than empty, rhetorical fear mongering. Shame on him.
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p>By all means it’s great to surround oneself with a variety of views, but Willfully Wrong is not a useful political point of view.
Your theory is he did this for the publicity? The guy was already the democratic VP nominee. I think people knew who he was. His position on Iraq cost him any chance of having a place at the national level again. It almost cost him his senate seat (and likely will eventually). Stunningly it hasn’t cost him most of his standing in the senate. Why do you think that is?
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p>The mentality of blindly following the party line and winning elections at all costs gave us one George W. Bush, who in no state of anyone’s reality was more qualified than John McCain (or anyone else) in 2000. Thanks but no thanks.
He was wrong.
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p>Blindingly wrong.
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p>It’s more generous to say he was ambitious than foolish. He is a politician. If politicians advocate stupid, expensive, dangerous policies like the stupid, expensive, dangerous policy in Iraq one would expect them to incur some, er, “risk”.
Your generosity towards him is well documented.
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p>You must be pretty pissed off at Obama for giving him yet another pass. Why is he doing this?
“The mentality of blindly following the party line”
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p>Huh? Can’t Democrats ever be right without being accused of “blindly following the party line”?
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p>There are issues where things might be murky, for example, current economic policy where you want a variety of viewpoints. But on Iraq, Lieberman has a proven record of foolishness.
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p>That has nothing to do with partisanship.
Trying to assassinate everyone that disagrees with you is problematic to me.
that I oppose assassination.
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p>I’m not sure whether that was irony, a worry on your part, or yet another straw man.
from the Yahoo news article link provided by Jasiu
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p>Anyone have a link to the final vote tally?
42-13, according to the link in the post.
Maybe “tally” isn’t the proper word, is it a “roll call” that I’m looking for? (And does it even exist?)
My understanding is that it was a secret ballot.
What’s the value to democracy of elected officials casting “secret votes” anyway?
While I understand the accountability argument doing it this way also avoids personalities and petty politics. Too often it seems that chairs, or especially House Speakers, will favor colleagues who voted for them and shaft those who voted against them, and by extention their constituents. This way, there’s at least theoretically a better chance of legislation being decided on the merits rather than based on who sponsored it.
It’s unfortunate, since one would think that dumping your partisan affiliation and subsequently actively campaigning against the Democratic nominee would be reason enough to be dumped from leadership. I do hope that the situation is such that Reid now has some political chits to cash down the road, but we’ll see.
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p>That said, I’m glad the drama is over after today. The number of words devoted to this issue (including mine, doh!) among progressives is far beyond what this topic deserves (just look at the past 876 or so diaries on Kos). I understand people can discuss multiple issues at once, but this (frankly minor) issue was really sucking all the oxygen out of the room. I’m tired of hearing about Lieberman.
From the cited piece:
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p>Good times, good times, as David said.
And he didn’t have the grapes to disclose it beforehand. Would we expect any better?
… not to panic. Since… ya know…I’m not there. Neither, last I checked, were any of you. If this campaign has taught me anything, it’s to trust Obamas instincts when it comes to people and personnel choices. I may not like his choices, but they’ve tended to fit more nicely into the long view. You may have noticed.
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p>Don’t get me wrong: if the choice were mine, and knowing what I know, I’d have told ole Droopy Doberman he had two (2) choices: repent or republican.
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p>But I’m old enough to know that there are things I don’t know. Some of these things might even be worth knowing. Fr’instance, the present location of Liebermans testicles. They may have simply been removed from McCains pockets and deposited into Obamas. In which case, advantage Obama.
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p>Regardless, I think Obama knows the tunes that makes Joe dance.
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p>Would I like to see Lieberman gone? You betcha. But the die is cast. Let us hope that Obama knows what he is doing. That, at least, is why I voted for him.
I still think this could be the right perspective. I know I’ve made a similar comment.
… from Ezra:
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It seems to me that many of us were wishing the Senate under Harry Reid’s leadership would be more aggressive. Is there any appetite in the conference for a Majority Leader with more spine? I was hoping for Hillary, but now it looks like she might get State. Remember, committees work for the Senate, so the real question is will we have a Majority Leader who will guide/direct the committee’s actions and be willing to call for a change of chair if the current chair doesn’t work out.
The fact that John Kerry voted for Lieberman shows that he has learned nothing from losing his presidential race or having a primary challenge. Despite what his people were saying at the convention he has not “got the message”. He is still drinking the cool-aid of the beltway Democrats. They have no principle except expediency and calculation. Having principles is an implicit reproach to then and so they hate the grass roots and net roots. No wonder the Democrats in Congress are seen as weak and craven. Lieberman will continue to stab Democrats in the back and those Senators who voted for him and Obama will deserve it. He did it before. His democratic friends campaign for him during his senate race. He repaid them with betrayal. Sometimes doing whats expedient and calculating does not have good results. John just wants to be a good responsible member of the establishment. It’s sad really. And I’m sorry I voted for him.
Remember people you do have a choice and while its true I ‘threw my vote away’ since Ed O’Reilly and Bob Underwood didn’t win, or even come close to winning, I can now say with confidence and pride ‘dont blame me’ when it comes to Kerry and thats the wonder of American democracy.
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p>Also while I disagree with the move it makes sense in the long run. The best politicians don’t hold grudges and simply move on and find guys they can play ball with. Lieberman knows this was Obama’s favor to grant him and he basically just put Lieberman in his pocket. If he was real smart he’d make him Ambassador to Israel just to get him out of the country but Jodi Rell would appoint herself or Chris Shays which would basically be the same as Joe. But now he is ever so close to getting those 60 votes-especially if Martin and Franken pull off miracles.