You must be logged in to post a comment.
BY: JohnInDenver
IN: Labor Day Weekend Open Thread
BY: 2Jung2Die
IN: Labor Day Weekend Open Thread
BY: MichaelBowman
IN: Labor Day Weekend Open Thread
BY: Duke Cox
IN: Who’s Paying For These Racist Anti-Harris Sign Stunts?
BY: davebarnes
IN: Labor Day Weekend Open Thread
BY: notaskinnycook
IN: Labor Day Weekend Open Thread
BY: 2Jung2Die
IN: Labor Day Weekend Open Thread
BY: notaskinnycook
IN: Labor Day Weekend Open Thread
BY: Colorado Pols
IN: Who’s Paying For These Racist Anti-Harris Sign Stunts?
BY: JohnInDenver
IN: Labor Day Weekend Open Thread
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay in the loop with regular updates!
I’m very glad we will have Udall representing us to provide a bit more of an actual progressive perspective in the Senate.
Any bets on how long it is before Salazar follows Ben Nighthorse Campbell’s lead?
See the bloggers are writing their Senators to say oust Lieberman. The major donors are calling and saying keep Lieberman as Homeland Security Chair. Who will they listen to bloggers or major donors?
Franken and Begich may both end up winning. You need Lieberman to say the results were fair and that they should be seated. Alaska’s results will probably go unchallenged but if Franken wins look for a huge outcry on the floor of the Senate which ultimately decides.
and what evidence do you have to back up that crack about “major donors? Did you just make it up to sound like you’re in the know? You lost that battle with your reference to Udall’s bro, bro.
And while it feels wrong not to tell Lieberman to get lost, Obama seems to prefer to keep him as a demonstration of post-partisan spirit.
Hard to see what the self serving Lieberman could be planning to do besides try to get back into his now completely dominant former party’s good graces. His buddies, McCain and Graham are both making nice bi-partisan noises.
While I must admit to thirsting for Lieberman blood myself, perhaps cooler heads prevailing isn’t such a bad thing. What real harm is the little creep likely to do in this new political landscape? And he will probably be at least partially punished. Let’s hope.
The guy is such a fair weather friend. Should they just welcome him back with open arms ? How about the minute you fuck up and go public in your opposition your ass is out ? Maybe it dosen’t work that way, I don’t know.
I know he can be a pivotal vote but they guy is such an opportunistic asshole. Shouldn’t good treatment and consideration be reserved for someone with at least an inkling of loyalty ?
I am sure most (including myself) have a hell of a lot of more respect for Graham and McCain. They are who they are, their party lost, and now like grown ups they are ready to work with the Dems. You have to admire that.
How about Joe Judas Lieberman you are on Democratic party double secret probation and we are watching your ass. But of course Dems won’t do that. Sure, what the hell, come on back.
I hope the fact this is happening is because a coordinated bipartisan tone is trickling down from Obama, McCain, Graham, Reid, etc and this falls within that. I hope so. Otherwise its’ just rewarding his shitty behavior.
Maybe Harry Reid can place him on double secret, super probation (or whatever it was that Dean Wormer placed the frat boys from Animal House on).
double secret probation is bad enough, but double secret SUPER probation ? Get outta here. I think you have to clean Nancy’s stilettos by tongue.
Sen. Salazar shows loyalty to his friends.
Sen. Lieberman is his friend.
I don’t like what Sen. Lieberman has done, but I consider Sen. Salazar a man that I give loyalty to based upon direct interaction with his personal integrity.
The party still needs to craft 60 votes in the senate to pass the majority of Obama’s proposed legislation.
Sen. Salazar will be a democratic senator from Colorado as long he wants to be.
Bank on it.
You give the impression that Salazar is in the video. But he’s not. He’s not even mentioned.
I assume this is your clever attempt to play on the discussion going in a different thread in which it was noted that a group of Dem senators, including Salazar, are working to keep Joe L. in the Dem caucus. WEAK.
When exactly will you finally be stripped of your front-page editor status? I need to calendar it.
Lieberman’s been overstating his support for several days now; I don’t need to listen to him telling me what support he “has”…
you didn’t get the kinder/gentler memo that bluecat sent me?
(which I think others here got), is that why is Salazar trying to keep Lieberman as chair of the committee on Homeland Security after Lieberman did everything he could to put McCain in the White House.
As to front page status, I always worry about those that want to censor viewpoints they don’t like…
Is Salazar really working that hard for it, or is Lieberman just yapping again?
Though it wouldn’t surprise me if Salazar was advocating for Joe; he supported Lieberman in the general election over the Dem candidate…
from CQ Politics
I don’t see anything in there supporting Lieberman’s side of the argument.
Joementum is pretty much the new caucus’s main topic aside from the economic crunch right now. They’ve got about a week to organize before their meeting. It would be surprising if any Senator wasn’t engaged in conversations about what to do with Joe.
As Salazar is not holding forth on a press conference, we are left with bits and pieces here and there. And so we must mak inferences. From politico
Let him keep Homeland Security and dump him from his other spots (they mention Armed Services, but he also chairs Government Reform). Get him out of the Reform Chair, and I’ll be okay. He’s only a minor pain in Homeland Security, and not so much with an Obama administration as he was when covering for Bush.
Oh – you still haven’t provided an article with a good source combined with a firm direction. Politico’s article was completely un-sourced, and they have better insight (aka sources) from the Right and the Lieberman than they do from the Dems.
Homeland Security is the Government “Reform” committee. Technically, it’s the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
I don’t want him there. He’s worse than useless in that spot.
My wishing that you had the same speech rights as almost every other poster here = my wishing to “censor” you? HA!
My, my, don’t you feel a sense of royal entitlement.
you can not act out of anger.
I think if he is kept on an extremely tight leash, keep him. If he even hints at tugging at the leash–put him down.
But I think there also should be consequences for his actions. If not, then any threats will be viewed as empty since nothing will have happened for what he did the last several months.
I hope they give him the chair of a much less important committee instead. He’ll be pissed but he’ll take it as it beats no chair and almost certain defeat when he runs for re-election.
No one really cares what the world of the Daily Kos thinks. Lieberman is going to keep the Chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. Senators Udall and Udall will both vote to keep his as Committee Chair.
It is a mean harsh world out there.
Down on big liberal blogs much?
No-one’s decided on who’s staying where. You know as much about Lieberman’s fate as you do about the impending conversion of Mitch McConnell to become the Democratic Senate Majority Leader.
So sit down, enjoy the ride, and don’t act so self-righteous about shit you just pull out of your ass.
Phoenix I learned a long time ago not to pretend to know anything I didn’t. You just reminded me of that.
Kind of like St. Jude
If the hyper lib-base cared to get into the weeds of actual governing rather than just the surface politics they’d realize that Lieberman has carried some serious water for big lib causes throughout his career. That said, they clearly don’t care, all because Joe decided to follow his heart rather than his political family during the election. Oh well, such is politics, but most of the Dem caucus in the Senate has a much longer memory than Kos’istan (and owes less to it than the House caucus), so Joe will likely be staying around for a while in the fold. In addition, those elected to Senate got there because they’re pretty good at strategery, so they can see beyond the right now and realize that they’ll want to keep Joe in the fold for the inevitable return to slimmer margins in the ’10, ’12 and ’14 terms.
There’s no doubt and no denial that Lieberman is an 85+% Dem. If he’d have acted it outside of the Senate chambers, he wouldn’t have had an opponent in the ’06 elections; more than his support for the war, his constant undercutting of Democrats in Congress on national TV was the driving force behind support of Ned Lamont by the netroots.
Similarly, it’s not so much support of McCain that now drives the netroots to want him out – it’s his continuing (even after the election) need to be “not a Democrat” in the public eye.
In short, Joe Lieberman only wants to stay “in the fold” in that he remains Homeland Security Committee Chair; he doesn’t seem to give a lick about actually supporting Dems outside the Senate chamber.
And, to the contrary of your statement, the Senate owes its ’06 majority to the netroots; without them, they probably wouldn’t have had either Sen. Tester or Sen. Webb, both of whose campaigns benefited immensely from netroots publicity and financial support.
BTW, The Senate will not likely narrow in ’10, just due to the makeup of the races coming up; in ’12 and ’14 we’ve got some potential issues, though. But then, Joe has his own issues in ’12 as he’s up for re-election in a state that is no longer in favor of him (Kos admittedly has a bit of a “thing” for Lieberman – he’s been polling CT to see how attitudes are changing, and they have… significantly.)
Lieb is just the current embodiment of the constant political shifting of base and ideals. He thinks his moderate vision should be the way of the D just like Jeffords thought his vision should be the way of the R (just to use the New England examples). Their parties shifted underneath them and Joe’s clinging and the netroots are rebelling against him. I think you’re portraying it as Lieb’s fault. I’m just calling it politics.
Agreed the Senate won’t likely narrow in ’10, but if you are Reid and are in charge of caucus strategery you have to have hedge strategies in place.
All that said, I think you’re right from earlier comments that nothing is a done deal. But the D Senate caucus is not as angry at Lieb as the netroots would want them to be and long-time alliances in the chamber go deeper than Lieb’s recent shenanigans.
Lieberman has his proponents, and the Senate has always been a buddy-buddy club – just look how easy appointments of former Senators go, regardless of how controversial they were.
I just think it would be a mistake to let Joe go free without some kind of punishment. He was warned that his support for McCain needed to be positive, and he broke his word on that and went after Obama. He’s not supportive of Democratic efforts when he gets airtime. Chairs have been traditionally assigned based in part on party support; Joe hasn’t been terribly supportive lately.
There must be some punishment for his actively campaigning for the Republican presidential nominee. Otherwise, party means nothing.
You don’t have to be some crazed lefty to be deeply offended by Lieberman’s behavior in the presidential election. He didn’t just campaign for McCain he insinuated that Obama was a Marxist, among other transgressions.
Joe Lieberman is a grown man and he made a political calculation and lost. For the sake of party/caucus discipline you cannot let one man go completely rogue and face no consequences for their actions.
As for Salazar, he lost my support when he voted in 2005 to remove the right of Habeas Corpus from Guantanamo detainees and “enemy combatants.” That Salazar is a lawyer and former state Attorney General makes that vote all the more odious. That was a deeply shameful moment in the history of the United States Senate. In my eyes it was Salazar’s unforgivable sin. I can go along with a certain amount of triangulation given the political make up of Colorado but I cannot look the other way on issues of basic justice. Salazar’s decision to revoke the 800 year old right to petition the government regarding one’s detention makes him, imo, unfit to serve in the United States Senate.
just saying it’s much less likely to happen than it would be if bloggers ran the country. 😎
the point of my original post on this was that Lieb has a long and deep record of carrying lib water that (he hopes anyway) shouldn’t be overlooked even in the face of his current shenanigans. Maybe his R-CON speech was a singular event while his career and what he’s done during his career on education, climate change, etc. is more important. (He hopes.)
But he still deserves a spanking.
When my kids screw up, I don’t cast them out of the family, but I also don’t say that because they’re normally terriffic that there will be no punishment. There are always consequences – the trick is to keep them appropiate.
What bothers me is the idea that we say that there is no downside to campaigning against your party’s candidate for president. And if he wants the fruits of the Democratic majority, then Obama was his candidate.
n/t
I haven’t heard any names. I’d be really surprised to see a primary. That may well be the race where I make my first contribution to a Green Party candidate.
…everyone mark it down…and please remind him of it when he’s likely to “forget” it later.
I also agree, there’s triangulation, and then there’s pissing on the constitution. I don’t like the first but I understand it’s needed. The second – no way.
and then, maybe police the area. Hey, it worked for me in the Army.
I haven’t read it with anything approaching regularity in years. The liberal blogosphere is far more diverse than just The Great Orange Satan.
and Sirota tiresome a while back. Early on it was fun having a lefty answer to all the righty noise but too much self-righteousness coupled with sophomoric pie in the sky stuff doesn’t wear well. My practicality meter just won’t stop kicking in.
I have raged against him in the past but I have to say I have really enjoyed him lately when he fills in for Jay Marvin in the morning. I don’t know if he changes stylistically between the formats or if I’m just growing more pissed off at Washington but he’s been really good lately.
Here’s the key thing about that particular role: Lieberman (publicly) based his support of John McCain on his perception that McCain’s strategy was the better one for America’s security and foreign policy. How effective will Congress and President-Elect Obama be on issues of national security and foreign policy if the chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee holds a contradictory ideological perspective from the President? In this scenario, what will be the legislative outcome of the clash between Lieberman presumably backing McCain’s “keep-’em-there-til-I-say-so” policy on Iraq, and Obama’s “responsible withdrawal” policy?
because HSGAC is a weak committee with a minor authorization role, no chits to bargain off and no approps authority. HSGAC has no say on foreign wars whatsoever. That’s one reason I think this whole dustup over Lieb is so overblown. Nobody in the Senate cares about HSGAC. It’s a totally minor committee, unless you’re a Waxman type that wants to do exec branch oversight as your raison d’etre.
What you say may be incredibly true.
But imagine the press and public reaction if any legislator in D.C. was to actually come out and say just that, publicly:
“Well, you know, the Senate Homeland Security Committee is a weak and minor committee with no real power whatsoever. It doesn’t really have that much capacity to oversee anything related to Homeland Security all that well. That’s why we’re letting Lieberman stay as chairman. But, hey, it’s not like we’re not concerned about Homeland Security or anything!”
Hoo-boy!
Watch these two Rachel Maddow commentaries and then say it’s wise to reward him with the Homeland Security Committee Chairmanship:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v… and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
Think of it as a zero sum game, starting with a vacant Chairmanship. In order to promote their agenda, Democrats have every right to appoint a true Democrat and a team player to the Chairmanship of the committee. Who is the Democratic Senator who will do the best job as the committee chair? Lieberman is by no stretch of the imagination, still a Democrat. He hasn’t done squat as chair over the last two years. He’s hostile to the Democratic Party and it’s goals. He has said he’ll vote with Republicans on filibusters. He doesn’t deserve the Chairmanship.