Monday, November 15, 2010

And, perhaps, the most pleasing...

Steve Kornacki...
...the most plausible scenario for Joe Lieberman in 2012, the more you look at things, may just be that he walks away. For good.
Sure, there'd be a measure of satisfaction in actually voting him out, but we're probably all better off if he faces the facts and leaves the stage.

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Sounds like someone else…

…has "outlived his usefulness." Via Salon...
Dick Morris, the former political adviser to President Bill Clinton who turned his back on Democrats and embraced conservatives, is raising money for Republican Sharron Angle's Senate bid.
I'll contemplate forgiving Clinton for Morris just as soon as I get over the whole Gore/Lieberman thing.

Don't hold your breath.

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Thursday, January 07, 2010

Fun Facts.

Via Eli Sanders at Slog...
Barack Obama's approval rating with Connecticut Republicans is higher than Lieberman's with the state's Democrats.

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Thursday, December 31, 2009

From the "Eye for an eye" file.

WIIIAI plots retaliation...
...let’s send Joe Lieberman to Yemen and have him set his leg on fire.
Sounds fair.

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Monday, December 14, 2009

Good question…

…from John Cole.
Now that Lieberman clinched the Monday morning headlines and will get the most attention on Morning Joe, what will drama queens John McCain and Ben Nelson do to get back in the news?
I dunno, but I'm sure they'll find a way, as will any number of Senators on the other side of the health care issue. Senators are like that. Even the most junior minority backbencher in the US Senate is, by virtue of the position itself, an important and powerful person, with the capacity to make news and a sense of entitlement to a certain amount of deference and attention. The afore-mentioned are simply exemplars of the unpleasant reality that the most effective way to fulfill that expectation of attention is to position yourself on the extreme side of an issue, though most will disguise that extremism under the cloak of moderation.

There's nothing moderate, of course, about the threat to join a Republican filibuster of an important Democratic policy initiative. To do so is to make common cause with the extremist obstructionists of the Republican Party, which is unified its desire to damage Democrats politically regardless of the costs or consequences for America or Americans. Questions of rational governance are irrelevant to a party whose political strategy calls for the failure of government as a first principle. No moderates there, and nothing moderate about helping them to implement that strategy.

The other, our, side is hardly silent, of course, but the voices we hear the most are from "mavericks" like Russ Feingold or non-Democrats like the independent socialist Bernie Sanders. If a Democratic Senator wants to make the papers, the suggestion that they might vote against final passage of health insurance reform that doesn't include a public option. There's a difference, of course, since they don't, as a rule, threaten to actually join a Republican filibuster, but the threat of any kind of dissension is usually enough for an enhanced degree of media attention.

The real story, of course, isn't Joe Lieberman or Ben Nelson (President McCain is in a different category, nor is it Russ Feingold or Bernie Sanders. The story is Republican extremism that has given Harry Reid they Sisyphean task of finding sixty votes for permission for the majority of the Senate to work its will, and the story can't be told without the word extremism. Not moderation. Not conservatism. Extremism. I suppose that's one reason the story isn't being told - the media seems to think calling extremism by its name is, well, extremist.

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Saturday, October 31, 2009

If Tom Harkin is sure….

"[Lieberman] still wants to be a part of the Democratic Party although he is a registered independent," Harkin said. "He wants to caucus with us and, of course, he enjoys his chairmanship of the [Homeland Security] committee because of the indulgence of the Democratic Caucus. So, I'm sure all of those things will cross his mind before the final vote."
...I'm, well, encouraged.

Hat tip to Josh Marshall.

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

So long, Joe.

Senator Lieberman announces he will retire at the end of his current term.

Not in so many words, and not necessarily voluntarily, but it sounds like retirement to me.

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Monday, August 24, 2009

Dear Associated Press…

…if your headline begins with "Lieberman says…," you're writing the wrong story.

Love,

Upper Left

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Friday, June 12, 2009

Score one for the good guys.

Two, even. Congress strikes a blow for adulthood...
WASHINGTON — Congressional negotiators have agreed to drop amendments to a supplemental appropriations bill that would have banned the release of photos depicting alleged detainee abuse and would have restricted bringing Guantanamo detainees to the United States.
Personally, I don't see any need to display more torture pictures except as exhibits at the trials of those who created the conditions and policies that made those pictures possible - even inevitable - but a Congressional ban is an idea worthy only of it's sponsors (Lieberman and Graham), who aren't worthy of the support of their peers on either side of the aisle. The whole "no prisoners on US soil" is part and parcel of the same scairdy-cat syndrome.

Nice to see the grownups in charge for a change.

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Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Quote of the day.

Joe Lieberman, via Think Progress...
No, we’re not less safe.
Somehow, though, knowing that Joe feels OK doesn't make me feel any better.

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Wednesday, November 19, 2008

I've been saving notes…

…for an epic post on the Lieberman matter, but tremayne has tied a neat bow around the whole business…
The Evolution of Blog Opinion

Most 2007: Lieberman sucks but at least he votes with us sometimes.

Dec., 2007: I can’t believe he’s endorsing McCain. Loser.

July, 2008: If he speaks at the RNC then he’s OUT!

Sep.,2008: Traitor! I can’t stand the sight of his smirky little face.

Nov., 2008: He must lose his committee chairmanship.

(Obama intercedes)

Today: You guys are a bunch of babies for whining about Lieberman so much.

I resemble those remarks.

It really comes down to second guessing the President-elect. My track record doing so is, well, pretty shabby, really. Don't get me wrong. If Joe Lieberman had lost his chairmanship, I'd be leading cheers. For the moment, though, I'll assume Barry O' knows what he's doing, even if I don't.

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Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Actually...

Nick Beaudrot
Reid, Lieberman, and Barack Obama have about fifty top priorities right now, and "mollifying The Left" just isn't one of them. Getting health care and foreign policy and tax-reform and economic stimulus legislation through the Senate is going to feel like giving birth to a baby grand.
..."Getting health care and foreign policy and tax-reform and economic stimulus legislation through the Senate" seems like an agenda tailor-made for mollifying anything fit to call itself "The Left."

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Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Good point.

Better question. Markos...
The Homeland Security committee was the committee with jurisdiction over the administration's handling of Katrina. Anyone remember Lieberman using it to hold the administration accountable for drowning an entire city?
Shouldn't just being lousy at it be reason enough to lose the job?

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Thursday, November 06, 2008

Screw him, then.

Bolstered by a newly expanded majority, Harry Reid met with Joe Lieberman on Thursday to sketch out the conditions by which the Connecticut independent could continue to caucus with Senate Democrats. But Lieberman did not accept Reid's initial offers, leaving his future in the caucus uncertain, and potentially setting off a campaign to pressure the Democratic steering committee to decide Lieberman's fate.

Reid offered Lieberman a deal to step down as chairman of the homeland security committee but take over the reins of another subcommittee, likely overseeing economic or small business issues officials said.
Reid's offer seems extraordinarily generous to me, but not completely unacceptable. If Joe Lieberman is going to spurn that generosity then the discussion should be closed. If he votes for the Democratic leadership when the new Congress organizes, then he should be permitted to attend general meetings of the caucus, with no appointments and with his seniority reset to zero on the day of that vote.

He is not today a Democrat. He has not been elected as our nominee, nor has he supported our ticket. That leadership vote is the price of his readmission, but readmission alone should be his reward.

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Wednesday, September 03, 2008

From the "Compare and contrast" file…

Matt Yglesias...
Tuesday night’s three GOP headliners — Fred Thompson, George W. Bush, and Joe Lieberman — all get through speeches that don’t mention the war in Afghanistan at all.
CNN
A sailor killed in Afghanistan on Saturday was the 500th U.S. service member to die in that country since the war there began in 2001.

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Tuesday, June 17, 2008

It's a nice thing, I suppose…

…but did anyone expect Al Gore to endorse someone else at this point?

And no, I'm still not over NAFTA. Or Holy Joe.

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Saturday, June 07, 2008

Yep.

Steve Benen...
At this point, the general election campaign is only going to be five months long. The right obviously has to pick up the pace, squeezing as much stupidity as they can into a limited time frame.
Whether it's fist bumps, church bulletins or phantom films, it's gonna be silly season for awhile. Knowing they can't win on the issues, the Republicans have a well established tradition of just making stuff up, and the press has an equally entrenched habit of lending credence to the Republican tales. Sometimes I think concern trolling is a required course in J schools everywhere.

You're going to hear a lot of "Did you hear…" from your friends in the coming weeks. "It's a lie" will invariably be an accurate, if not always adequate response.

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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Since you asked.

Jane Hamsher
Can we just dispense with the charade that Joe Lieberman is doing any of this because he's a man of principle who will back the best candidate, regardless of party, as he maintains?
Since you asked, yes, we can.

For some time now, actually.

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Thursday, February 07, 2008

It takes all that?

It's everywhere. I snagged it at DKos
Lieberman's endorsement of Republican John McCain disqualifies him as a super-delegate to the Democratic National Convention under what is informally known as the Zell Miller rule, according to Democratic State Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo.
Gee, I would'a thunk not being a Democrat would be enough. We had a nominee in Connecticut, remember?

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Sunday, December 16, 2007

Bonus Heh™.



Hat tip to Shakespeare's Sister.

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