When, a few days ago, I labeled Harry Reid's Medicare buy-in proposal as "shockingly responsible," that uplifting status was reason enough to know it was doomed.
In fact, reportedly the Senate doesn't even wait to hear if what it has proposed is, according to the Congressional Budget Office, authentically responsible from a fiscal point of view. Indeed, at this point there are valid questions about what it is the Senate does do, aside from wallowing in the pettiest of politics and squalid factional fights.
There seems to be little question left, however, about what those 60 caucusing Democrats should do next: ceremonially reduce their numbers by one, and shop for another chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.
Democrats -- in the traditional, mildly progressive sense of that vague appellation -- never did have a supermajority of 60, and it's time to declare it official. Otherwise they'll continue to take a public-relations pounding for squandering their "filibuster-proof" majority and, worse, they'll continue to look like the hapless, disarrayed bunch of atomistic egos they are.
The elimination of Joe Lieberman from the Democratic caucus need not be accomplished in any Liebermanlike -- which is to say -- vindictive way. It could be explained, rather, by Democratic leaders -- calmly and coolly -- that having Mr. Lieberman further caucus with them would be like the FBI's organized crime division inviting the nation's Tony Sopranos to its meetings.
Lieberman is lower than a mole: he's a rat, and frankly that's somewhat insulting to rodentdom.
No doubt, in the short term Lieberman's debarment would be interpreted by many as naked revenge; cries would go up from assorted commentators about the party's exclusion of diverse points of view, and conservative Democrats would wring their hands about censorship imposed and dangling Damoclesian swords.
In the long run, however, such a testicular sign of enforced party discipline would be a marvelous development: that is, Lieberman's exile would represent the party's declaration of freedom, through coercion -- there are some things from which they, as a coherent political party, will not budge. Cross us, and you're out.
I have advocated this for some time. Any list of inviolables need not be a long one; what distinguishes, I would hope, the progressive mind from the reactionary is a tolerance of diverse views -- yet for a political party to be, as I noted above, coherent, it must have some organizing principles; it must possess comprehensible objectives which the electorate can absorb, weigh, and then embrace or reject.
But, again, these principles-cum-objectives need not explode into an unachievable or self-defeating laundry list; just one or two paramount issues each Congressional election -- and each Congressional session -- that announce: This is what we stand for, and this is what you'll get, if you put us in the majority.
For now, what's demonstrably certain is that Senate Democrats are in the minority, which is to say, they possess no functional majority in the bizarro, quantum mathematics of their august institution. Hence, pragmatically speaking, they must make the best of what's possible: a coalition vote on health care.
Screw Lieberman's acid rain. Let the Snowe gently alight -- precisely what the White House has realistically pursued since summertime; it could see this train wreck coming, because it can count.
Four months ago, former Clinton aide Paul Begala wrote in a Washington Post op-ed -- "Progress over Perfection" -- that he retains "a heavy burden of regret from my role in setting the bar too high the last time we tried fundamental health reform." And "it would be a bitter disappointment if health reform," this time around, "did not include a public option" -- or, just to update matters, a Medicare buy-in. Still, he continued, "The question is not whether I or other progressives will support a health-reform bill that includes everything we want but, rather, whether we will support a bill that doesn't."
To do so isn't easy. That's undeniable. But, that's political reality. That's also the reality of progress.
First, though, the Democratic caucus room's sergeant at arms, if there be such a creature, should demagnetize Joe Lieberman's I.D. card.
Buzz this on Buzzflash.net
Let Lieberman caucus with the Repubs.
Joe was 'for' the public option until there was a chance it might pass. Joe was 'for' expanding Medicare until there was a chance it might happen. Looks like he took issue positions needed to get himself elected while never really wanting the legislation passed.
The least the Dem leadership should do is take away his Homeland Security committee 'chair' position. Let him decide for himself if that is enough to force him into the Republican caucus. The Dems then need to do whatever it takes to get Snowe and/or Collins to be the 60th vote.
spineless Democrats
The spineless Democrats won't do ANYTHING to Lieberman. What the Senate needs to do is kill the Health Insurance Corporation Welfare Act of 2009 and then go on the road and start pointing fingers and loudly screaming the names of the Senators that caused it to go down. Sadly, that would include MOST of them. The spineless Dems won't do that either. I'm guessing the truckloads of bribe cash that they are receiving will keep them comfortable and quiet.
It's time for Democratic voters to wise up and stop giving the party their time, money or votes. The Democrats are in the left pocket of corporate America now and no longer deserve our support. Vote Green in 2010 so we can have real change.
What happened to Joe?
Who has this man's testicles in their firm and obviously tightening grip? What force leads a man down the road this one is traveling...? The behavior of our representatives as a whole has been mysterious but Joe jerks so quick you can almost see the strings...
I have an associate who believes that all politicians are controlled, not by donations, but by naked fear, by blackmail and outright bribery... All of them, all of the time... They don't become successful unless they have a "handle". I used to call him cynical, now I'm not so sure...
Joe Lieberman keeps a photo of himself and Robert F. Kennedy on his office wall...
I think he should take it down... And leave the Caucus, for he is not a Democrat but the founding and almost solitary member, he is married after all, of the Party of Joe.
RGJ/Dallas112263
A Snake is a Snake by any other name
The only, and I do mean the ONLY reason for the democrats to have kept Joe LIEberman in the democratic caucus (with a prime chairmanship to boot) after years of campaining with republicans and underming democratic interests--is because he was to be a cloture vote for democrats. Always to be with the dems on procedural votes, occasionally a pain on actual votes, BUT ALWAYS WITH THE DEMS ON CLOTURE. Do you mean to tell me the stupid, spineless dems didn't extract this concession from him when handing him his throne after years of betrayal?
I find this incredible.
What adjectives are left to describe how weak the leadership is from Reid and Obama? Yet Carp excoriates one and absolves the other. Obama--who famously once insisted he wasn't a "sap"--was the prime mover in allowing LIEberman back into the caucus with a minumum of punishent. In fact, you might now properly call him the Enabler-In-Chief. And enablers generally are "saps."
It looks to me like the Neocon warmongers and corporate behemoths have boiled the Chicago out of Obama and left us with Dr. Phil. Or maybe he was hardboiled all along and the 67 million who voted for him are the saps.
LIEberman MUST GO DOWN. If the 60th vote means nothing then 59 it should be. He has now extracted his revenge upon the liberals who had the temerity to defeat him in the primary in 2006, and in so doing is sentancing thousands of Americans to an early death. How does one describe in words a man who would do such a thing?
At this point, though, it is no longer about LIEberman. It is about Obama and the dems' continuing to enable a back-stabbing, petty, vindictive, traitor in their midst. As a liberal who is completely fed up on a variety of fronts, I can tell you that any friend of LIEberman is an enemy of mine.
And that includes those would enable him further.
kill the damn bill already
With the destruction of the medicare buy in the Dumbocrats have killed the last decent thing about this "reform" bill.It is now a corporate help bill not a people health bill.Need i remind my fellow Democrats,when Lieberman was up for reelction and losing to a better Democratic candidate,the party threw their support and money to Joe.Face it,the dumocrats are now as conservative as the rethugs and neither party is worth a damn.
stop this infighting now
The Most Important Things For The American People Right Now:
Forget the rest of the industry supported garbage they are trying to sell us, Only a single payer universal health care plan and no substitutes.
Forget excuses of scandal, A full independant investigator appointed for all the following-
Falsifying intelligence on Iraq, Violations of Geneva convention and war crimes, Interfering with elections and partisan supreme court, and 9-11 evidence.
A full accounting from the Fed and Treasury of several trillion dollars given away to major banks and corporations in the last eight years.
A full accounting from the IRS on why less than 15% of corporate taxes were collected in past eight years.
A full reapportionment of tax rates, placing the burden of supporting the infrastructure upon those who profit from it the most.
Revoke FOX license to broadcast and shut them down. Freedom of speech is not an issue when you yell "fire" in a theater, nor is fomenting armed insurrection and civil unrest.
There is more, but this would be a good start.
PM, a few days ago, YOU were SUPPORTING the OBSTRUCTIONISTS
PM, a few days ago, YOU were SUPPORTING the OBSTRUCTIONISTS.
Today you are complaining about one of them. And get a clue, man: Lieberman is just the FRONT that Obama, which is to say EMANUEL, is HIDING behind.
Both Obama and Emanuel have been TRYING to GUT real, meaningful public-option health care reform... SINCE DAY ONE. Here's that video of Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus LAUGHING, as he calls for MORE POLICE, to have www.SinglePayerAction.org doctor ARRESTED, for speaking up for Single Payer reform in Baucus' bribed-and-bought committee, the doctors ARRESTED for protesting Baucus' FIFTEEN TO ZERO EXCLUSION of single-payer or public-option discussion from his first, most preliminary "REFORM" hearings! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKP05AyfRsI
The Emanuel/Obama White House DID NOT LIFT A FINGER to support the brave, courageous, and conscientious doctors who risked their careers getting arrested protesting Baucus' DICTATORIAL CORRUPTION. THE FIX WAS IN, way back in May, and months later, PM Carpenter was helping Emanuel/Obama co. WHITEWASH that grisly, despicable, murderous, insanely in-your-face CORRUPTION & DICTATORIAL CENSORSHIP of a LIFE & DEATH ISSUE that affects MILLIONS of American families.
What do Lieberman, Emanuel, Obama, and all these bought-and-owned, cowardly, DICTATORIAL "yellow dog" REPUBLICANS, POSING as Democrats, have in common?
LIKE uber- Right-Wing Republican warmonger (PNAC chairman) http://newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm, NY multi-millionaire media heir, and "tax-cuts-for-rich in time of war" (i.e. "LET THE PEONS PAY DOUBLE, for MY wars!") BILL KRISTOL.... Obama, Emanuel, Lieberman, Baucus, Landrieu, Nelson, Lincoln, DON'T CARE if AMERICAN CHILDREN DIE from LACK OF MEDICAL CARE, for preventable or treatable illnesses. (59 seconds into video Kristol SNEERS at American children who will DIE without some medical assistance.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqObdWSv5lg
Barack Obama has TAKEN HIS OVERWHELMING election popular majority, AND sweeping House & Senate majority gains, and HANDED the real power & policy making right over to the EMANUEL/LIEBERMAN/Kristol Right-Wing multimillionaire warmongering, tax-cuts-for-rich-in-time-of-war LIKUDNIKS, and most commentators are AFRAID to even use the words "Neo-Con" !!!
And as if the above weren't ghastly enough, so-called "Democrat" HILLARY CLINTON is such a bought-and-owned NEO-CON in her own right, that she is TO THE RIGHT - MORE OF A WARMONGER - than either of her REPUBLICAN Secretary of State predecessors, Colin Powell or even Condoleeza Rice! Obama and Hillary's INSANE SUBSERVIENCE to the Neo-Con Likudniks, is making CONDI RICE look competent, Colin Powell look principled (despite his "Iraq has WMD" lies-to-war speech at the UN in behalf of the Wolfowitz-Cheney warmongers), and now Fox news can even run a poll asking "How much Better was President Bush" - W! - "than President Obama?" with a straight face!
Since there are TENS of THOUSANDS MORE Americans, today, who have been EVICTED from their homes, LAID OFF from their jobs, DENIED health care, or UNABLE to afford their health care premiums since Bush was president in Dec. 2008, it is a question that isn't as absurd as most Fox propaganda!
All those Americans FIRED, EVICTED, and UNABLE TO AFFORD HEALTH CARE _since_ Obama became president, might as well be the "DISAPPEARED" victims of some murderous Latin American COUP, as much as Obama and his Neo-Con gangster cabal - Emanuel, Summers, Lieberman, Rubin, and the whole Golddamn-Sachs crew - are concerned, but last week, PM Carpenter was BEATING UP ON HARRY REID, for TRYING to provide some resistance to Obama's "RIGHT WING REPUBLICAN WARMONGERS, POSING as 'Democrats'" Neo-Con wolves in Dems sheep clothing ("DINO") crew and their grisly MURDER of genuine health care reform!
You have got that right
Great comment! Great passion! You tell 'em!
Carpy certainly has a lot of
Carpy certainly has a lot of nerve citicizing lieberman. Personally, I can't see an ounce of difference between them.