[UPDATE: You know, it occurs to me that they should wait until after the new Congress is sworn in to worry about this. There’s no urgency to do it now, and if they do strip Lieberman of his chairmanship and he bolts, there will be a tie in the Senate for the next six weeks, which is plenty of time for the Republicans to screw things up. Why not just wait ’til January?]
The big vote is on Tuesday.
Senate Democrats will decide by secret ballot Tuesday whether to take away Sen. Joe Lieberman’s chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee – a post from which he oversees U.S. security issues, as well as the operations of a wide segment of the federal government.
Two Senators — Leahy and Sanders of Vermont — have called for Lieberman to lose his chairmanship. Dorgan has come close. Beyond that, folks are understandably being pretty tight-lipped about it.
We’ve been over this before. It simply makes no sense to allow Lieberman, who is no longer a Democrat, and who actively campaigned against the Obama/Biden ticket, to the point of openly disparaging Obama’s patriotism, to continue in his position as chairman. Elections have consequences, and Joementum lost. If Lieberman’s remaining in the caucus really mattered, maybe I’d think differently — but it doesn’t, because the Dems will now have well over 51 solid votes to control the Senate. The filibuster stuff can wait (and, as I’ve said before, even if he stays in the caucus, that’s no guarantee of voting for cloture).
So hear this, Senators Kennedy and Kerry: no Homeland Security chairmanship for Joe Lieberman.
I think keeping Lieberman in his position would damage Democratic ambitions significantly more than they would advance them. If the balance was still within a vote or two in the Senate, there is an argument. But it is not. The vote on 4 November should be respected.
it looks like Begich is on his way to winning in Alaska, which would bring the Democrats + Lieberman total to 58.
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p>I’d peg a Franken win at about 40%…
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p>59. I dunno much about the GA runoff.
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p>I think they should still kick him out of the committee. Call his bluff. If he decides to leave the caucus, then good riddance!
and once again there hasn’t been a smidgen of talk about how he is unqualified for the position or mismanaged it. This is just bitter politics.
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p>Where’s the change?
He is tremendously unqualified for the position, and he did mismanage it egregiously, especially when compared to his House counterpart Henry Waxman. That should be mentioned more often.
The first part of this Rachel Maddow commentary sealed it for me. He hasn’t done his job. I’m not so worried about what she says about going after Obama, but he surely hasn’t met the standard set by Waxman.
… and he hasn’t exactly been ambitious enough to actually do any meaningful oversight.
I called Kennedy and Kerry to tell them I don’t believe Lieberman should be rewarded with a chairmanship of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Besides campaigning against both Obama and Democratic Senators, he’s been asleep at the switch on that Committee.
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p>If he winds up leaving the caucus over losing his chairmanship, so be it. As David points out, the Dems will still have a majority and his caucus isn’t a guarantee of how he will vote on individual issues, including cloture, anyway. Plus, his leaving the caucus would turn an unlikely re-election in 2012 into an impossibility . . . and that’s a good thing.
without Joe Lieberman!
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p>There are a number of fine Democratic senators that could head up the Homeland Security Committee in the Senate. Joe Lieberman, John McCain, et. al. do not have a monopoly on concern for our security. The recent election should have proved that.
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p>Democrats do not have to play second fiddle to anyone when it comes to concern for the nation. Bipartisanshhip is fine, but giving Lieberman a chairmanship just sends the wrong message.
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