Already I have a major policy difference with the new President before he’s even sworn in…
Obama Wants Lieberman To Remain In Democratic Caucus: President-elect Barack Obama has informed party officials that he wants Joe Lieberman to continue caucusing with the Democrats in the 111th Congress, Senate aides tell the Huffington Post.
This is such a huge mistake I don’t even know how to describe it in words. Leaving Holy Joe in charge of the committee does two things:
1) It leaves an opening for the “death by a thousand cuts” school of sabotage. Remember Whitewater? A bunch of hearings about something that allegedly went down well before Clinton was President wound up as only the second impeachment+trial of a President in American history. I assure you that Lieberman will go on TV with his trademark grave look and say that something deserves “a full and fair hearing” and then whammo, it’s wingnuts on parade. Rezko, Ayers, hell, they may even dig up that guy who says he had gay sex with Obama while they were both coked up. And that’s not the serious problem:
2) It sends a signal that in politics, you can say anything you like, do anything you like, and when it’s over, none of it matters any more. You can say that the candidate of your own party is dangerously unprepared to be President. You can cast doubt on his patriotism. You can sign on with the lowest of talk-radio sludge – and there are no consequences. This is not going to work out. If you undermine your guy, there has to be a price. There was no price to undermining Clinton, and the results speak for themselves.
I know what Obama is trying to do here – he’s trying to be bipartisan and above the fray and let-us-now-reason-together, and God bless him – but this is one where Rahm needs to impress upon him the importance of not starting out by sending the message that there are no consequences for taking an enormous shit on your own leader. Joe Lieberman needs to be forced clean out of the caucus and made to do a deal with the GOP if he wants anything more than a visitor’s pass.
Of course, this could all be Obama’s way of wiping the fingerprints off the knife before the Dem caucus does the deed for him. In which case he is an even slicker operator than I give him credit for. That IS the Chicago way…with apologies to Eliot Ness.
I was wondering if this was his way of wiping off his fingerprints when I first read this. Time will tell.
it may not be quite the neg it seems at first glance – some analysis I’ve seen says they’ll remove him from Foreign Affairs (or whatever the hell that comm’s called) thereby taking away his soapbox for his major disagreement with the party platform, and giving him something different where he’s in lockstep. that way he gets his smackdown, he loses power where he wants it, and he’s beholden to the new administration / congressional bosses for what power he has. If that’s the ticket, I’m game.
That said, this reminds me of why I can’t work in politics. I surrender – everyone just figure it out and I’ll show up for inauguration.
I hope that the “cleaning the knife” analogy holds true. Part of me hopes that that’s the case because of the repeated pledges to “sort this out” during a full… caucus… of the Caucus.
If things turn out that way, the Chicago Way could get a lot of use over the next four years. Obama says something to heal us all, while Rahm lurks in the shadows with the stiletto.
Delightful.