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LIEBERMAN V. WORLD
It looks like Senate Democrats have found a compromise on the issue of Joe Lieberman. The proposal that will be voted on today is that Lieberman loses a lesser subcommittee chairmanship but retains the more high-profile gig of Homeland Security Committee Chairman. My gut says that Lieberman should lose his position and basically be ostracized by his colleagues; what he did during the campaign was shameful, especially after Obama campaigned with him in his last dicey re-election. As Jon Chait points out, the situation is not without precedent, and the prior offenders lost their committees.
At the same time, though, I'm not inclined to lose a vote in the Senate -- either to the Republican caucus, or, if you think he wouldn't go that far, just to uncooperative pique. It's all very easy to get excited about revenge but at the end of the day I'm more excited passing progressive legislation, which needs to go through the Senate. Obviously the Senate Democratic majority has grown a good deal and sixty votes as a number doesn't matter as much as we like to think it does, but one more vote is one more vote. And I'm not sure his punishment would really have a lot of deterrent power -- are there many Democratic Senators who would undermine the party in the same way as Lieberman except for their worries of losing their seniority? In the end, the only purpose it serves is getting a little vengeance. Which is nice, but doesn't get us anywhere. So let's keep him in the caucus, give him a slap on the wrist ... and have the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fund a primary challenger in 2012. That's the ol' Joementum!
-- Tim Fernholz
COMMENTS (10)
It's not just revenge.
Some of us would actually like to see his committee investigate the Bush administration's response to Katrina.
With Lieberman at the gavel, it'll never happen.
In Louisiana, this is a life and death issue. Literally.
We're not just lip service for the Democratic Party, this is our actual future at stake.
Posted by: alli | November 18, 2008 9:46 AM
Its not just pique, as alli says above. Far from it. Its damned good politics. Joe has literally no where to go. He should be slapped back, and slapped back hard both for his failures as a democrat with Katrina and DHS during the last two years of the bush administration and for his disloyalty and criminal unreliability. He simply can't be trusted. If anything the Dems should have stripped him of the more important committee and left him the less important committee (with concomitant less money and fewer assistants etc...) and given him a straight up quid pro quo--we won't personally attack and demean you or strip you of your last chairmanship as long as you vote in fucking lock step with us on every vote, even if its a vote asking you to hold the toilet paper roll in the men's room, for the next two years and we will reconsider after that. This is not hard. Parents have to make these decisions all the time. Its called "natural consequences" and also just plain good parenting. You don't ever forgive bad behavior until restitution has been made and after a probationary period.
aimai
Posted by: aimai | November 18, 2008 9:56 AM
"It's all very easy to get excited about revenge but the end of the day I'm more excited passing progressive legislation..."
Amen, amen.
Posted by: Roger | November 18, 2008 10:17 AM
what alli and aimai said. Lieberman is an impediment to accountable governance.
Posted by: Passing Shot | November 18, 2008 11:13 AM
Another one for getting a new chair who will actually run that committee. If there has ever been a time we've needed government oversight, it's the past eight years.
Steve Benen has an interesting scenario: say Lieberman starts a Starr-like witch hunt against Obama. Are the Democrats going to remove him then? How would that look?
Posted by: Allen K. | November 18, 2008 11:57 AM
Allen K. writes:
[S]ay Lieberman starts a Starr-like witch hunt against Obama. Are the Democrats going to remove him then? How would that look?
I think it's a trick question -- they can't remove him then.
If I understand correctly, Senators become committee chairs when the Senate passes an organizing resolution at the opening of a session that makes committee assignments and bestows chairmanships. (See the 2007 organizing resolution.) To strip JL of his chairmanship, the Senate Dems would have to
pass a new organizing resolution, which the GOP would filibuster.
Posted by: alkali | November 18, 2008 12:27 PM
They can remove him later in the session, according to Senator Evan Bayh, among other sources. The Democratic Caucus can shift committee chairs at will...
Posted by: Tim Fernholz | November 18, 2008 2:07 PM
"So let's keep him in the caucus, give him a slap on the wrist ... and have the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fund a primary challenger in 2012. That's the ol' Joementum!"
I think it would be inappropriate of the DSCC to attempt to meddle in the Connecticut for Lieberman Party's primary process. Rather, I think they should simply recruit and fund a Democratic challenger to Joe Lieberman.
Posted by: Greg | November 18, 2008 3:04 PM
Keep dreaming about the DSCC finding a challenger. Try 'the DSCC will work behind the scenes to paint the liberal Democrat who wins the primary as a hippie nutjob and give tacit support to their pal Joe Lieberman'.
Posted by: joejoejoe | November 18, 2008 3:33 PM
Mr. Fernholz suggests that the Dems should just "have the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fund a primary challenger in 2012."
What a short memory you have, Mr. Fernholz -- Lieberman was defeated in the 2004, and slithery slimeball that he is, he just left the party and ran as an independent, winning with the help of the Republcians, whom he's been repaying ever since.
How would a replay of that scenario help anyone?
As for Obama's role in all this, he has to appear conciliatory in all this, but the spineless Senate Dems didn't have to.
They seriously dropped the ball.
Posted by: skyvue | November 18, 2008 4:45 PM