Lieberman considering trip to the RNC, Reid unconcerned

April 16, 2008

After criticizing Joe Lieberman’s antics on Monday and Tuesday this week, I was prepared to give him a pass today, but his drive to infuriate his former party continues unabated.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), the Democratic Party’s 2000 vice presidential nominee, is leaving open the possibility of giving a keynote address on behalf of Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) at the Republican National Convention in September. […]

McCain has yet to ask Lieberman to speak, either in primetime or elsewhere, at the convention. But if McCain thinks it will help make his case for the White House, as some of his allies suspect, Lieberman would be willing to speak on his behalf.

“If Sen. McCain, who I support so strongly, asked me to do it, if he thinks it will help him, I will,” Lieberman said in a brief interview.

Lieberman said he doubts McCain will ask him to give a keynote address, but acknowledges the subject has yet to come up in the two senators’ discussions.

This comes just days after Lieberman boasted to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation, “As an Independent, it doesn’t bother me at all to be honored at the same dinner with Rush Limbaugh. In fact, to show you how much things have changed for me, one of my greatest missions this year is to convince Rush to support the Republican candidate for President! The truth is I greatly admire Rush’s love for our country and support for our troops, as shown by his remarks tonight and his generous support of MCLEF. Rush has a big voice but he has heart that is even bigger.”

He wasn’t kidding.

Almost as frustrating, though, is the response from the Democratic Senate leadership.

Even though [Majority Leader Harry Reid] may not need Lieberman next Congress to claim a Senate majority, he told Lieberman in private conversations that he would protect his seniority.

“I can tell you Sen. Reid had talked to me a few times and said he knows there will be talk if we get more than 51 Democrats next year,” Lieberman told The Hartford Courant this month. “As far as he is concerned, I will retain my seniority, et cetera, no matter how many Democrats there are next year.”

Jim Manley, a Reid spokesman, said he would not comment on the senator’s private conversations, but acknowledged that the two men spoke.

When asked Tuesday if Lieberman’s chairmanship was at risk next Congress, Reid said succinctly: “No.”

“We have one difference of opinion, maybe two with Sen. Lieberman,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a prominent supporter of Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) presidential candidacy. “As a whip, I can tell you time and again, he’s been there when we’ve needed him.”

Do we really need to run through the list of instances in which Lieberman hasn’t been there when we needed him?

For that matter, shouldn’t giving the keynote address at the Republican National Convention be some kind of disqualifier?

When Zell Miller did this, he was already retiring, and couldn’t bother anyone anymore. But Lieberman is in the middle of his term — he’d return from the RNC and go right back to work alongside his Democratic colleagues.

Or, more likely, he’s expecting a President McCain to save him and given him a cabinet spot.

Based on the campaign clinton is running, looks like they will probably reserve a special spot for shillary there too. Didn’t they endorse LIEberman last time around too?

I have seen it here before – but it’s worth repeating – America was never meant to be ruled by power-elite cabals like bush-clinton-bush-clinton.

We can see that mclame and shillary represent the same interests.

  • Let’s calm down and cut Sen. Reid some slack here. If he threatens Lieberman now, Lieberman potentially switches parties and Reid potentially loses control over the Senate. Other than the undeniable pleasure of taking a whack at the odious senator from Connecticut, there’s little to be gained by making pronouncements about hypothetical situations that may or may not exist next year, and a lot to be lost. If the Democrats have a solid majority next year, Reid can always cite changed circumstances and find a new pretext to throw Lieberman out of the caucus and/or strip him of his chairmanship.

  • Reid is assuming that Reid will be making these decisions. Let’s hope we can replace Reid as well.

    Joe and I haven’t discussed it yet, but I would be glad to kick his bony ass if he goes to the Repub convention.

  • I’m not sure, but I think I agree with Jake. Reid probably can’t throw Liebershit under the bus yet.

    But if we pick up any senate seats and Reid fucks us over (again), I will personally pass out the pitchforks and torches on the way to Reid’s office.

    If he’s doing the Senate Club thing, Reid has to GO.

  • Jake has it right, I think.

    I’m sure in the back of his mind, Reid knows his promise to Joe right now is as binding as his 2006 promise to work for the Democratic presidential nominee this year.

  • It’s win-win-win for Joe: He joins the McCain administration, or he stays in the Senate and keeps all of his power because the Democrats have no spine, or he’s blackballed by the Dems, at which point he spends half his time on TV and radio being told by Rush and Sean that he’s a victim of those mean liberal fascists in the Democrat Party.

  • I fail to understand the reason for your complaint. After all, this is just what Obama advocates: working with Republicans in a post-partisan manner. It’s just a vision of the era of good feelings to come. Surely you, too, will be moving beyond the petty partisanships of the old style politics of the past?

  • There is no need to pick a fight they can’t win at this time. Obviously, as information changes in the future, things will change.

    There’s an old saying: Hold your friends close and your enemies closer.

    Let Lieberman think he’s OK. The decision on his membership in the Democratic caucus isn’t Reid’s or Durbin’s to decide. A majority vote at the first caucus meeting will take care of everything and Reid will keep his word of not kicking Lieberman out – not “personally.”

    Right now, Lieberman is a “useful idiot” to both sides for different reasons. Once the election is over nd the Democrats have won, he’ll be of no value to anyone.

  • Jake has it right. There’s nothing to be gained from attacking Lieberman now, and everything to lose.

    And Mike, you have it wrong. The problem with Lieberman is is politics, not his party allegiance. Sure, some people (especially on highly partisan blogs like this) see them as interchangeable, but even in a probably-too-good-to-be-true post-partisan world, Lierberman would still be betraying his constituents and the country by voting for traditionally-Republican pro-corporate, anti-secularism, pro-gun, anti-choice, pro-war policies, and he would presumably use whatever power he has to continue to shield Bush and company from investigations of their misdeeds. So even a post-partisan idealist can rightfully say that he needs to lose whatever power he has.

  • The chairmanships are set for this session so it does not matter if Lieberman turns republican. He is not the critical vote on any key issue since 60 votes are needed to get anything through the senate. Reid made a deal with the devil when he backed Lieberman’s re-election and is paying a dear price for it. Lieberman must go and the sooner the better.

  • I would just like to take this opportunity to once again thank the folks in Connecticut for re-electing this sore loser.

    I swear everything he’s done since he his 2006 ‘independent’ and subsequent victory has a been to punish the Democratic party for picking LaMont.

  • Dale said: “Reid is assuming that Reid will be making these decisions. Let’s hope we can replace Reid as well.”

    Bingo! And as Rick says.

    Why Reid in the first place? So Nevada can prevent the openning of Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Facility of course.

    If we are going to go Green/Nuclear to defeat our Islamic Terrorist foes and their OPEC bankers, we need to open Yucca…
    … or reverse George HW Bush’s decision to NOT reprocess nuclear fuel the way that France does.

  • I agree that Reid really can’t punish Lieberman now, with the Dems’ razor-thin majority. I also agree that Reid has been a mostly ineffectual leader, in particular in contrast to Pelosi (even granting that she has a bigger majority and the House rules are friendlier to partisans). Once the election is over and the Dems have an enlarged majority, throwing Lieberman under the bus and challenging Reid for the Majority Leader position should be high priorities.

  • I have given money to the DSCC in the past, but I won’t do so anymore if the Dem leadership is OK with Lieberman endorsing McCain’s candidacy and Rush Limbaugh’s humanity.

  • It’s been mentioned before in this thread but bears repeating — a Lieberman walkout from the Democratic Party would NOT cause control of the Senate to flip. The leadership is already set for the duration of this Congress.

    My understanding of what happened in ’01 is that the flip got written into the interparty agreement that started off the Congress, as a concession to get the Dems to go along with the leadership arrangement since the Senate was tied. Since the Dems had an actual majority this time, that didn’t happen.

    So they should run ol’ Joementum out of town on a rail.

  • I knew Reid wasn’t up to the job when I heard him say, maybe on 60 Minutes, that he didn’t consider Lyndon Johnson a good role model as majority leader.

    LBJ. The man who reinvented the job and became the most powerful majority leader in history. The man who ate Republicans for breakfast and intimidated the hell out of his fellow Democrats. The man who wasn’t afraid to twist senators’ arms right out of their sockets if that’s what it took to get things done.

    We need an LBJ in the Senate today. Reid’s a pussy by comparison, and should never have been given the job to begin with.

  • Lance @ 15: If we are going to go Green/Nuclear to defeat our Islamic Terrorist foes and their OPEC bankers, we need to open Yucca…
    … or reverse George HW Bush’s decision to NOT reprocess nuclear fuel the way that France does.

    Lance, we DON’T want to reprocess like France does it. We want to reprocess all our nuclear waste into fuel assemblies for breeder reactors. If we’d do that we could use all of it up in about three years, and be making energy with depleted uranium instead of shooting it at people whose oil we’re trying to steal. Yucca would be a very good place to store all the “waste” that’s sitting around the country in order to keep it safe. Then we just build one mondo processing plant just outside it, process all of it into breeder fuel, then after all the lightwater reactors reach the end of their lifespans we’d just shut it all down because after that all the reprocessing would be done on-site at the breeders. We could leave Yucca empty then, or use it for one hellacious mushroom farm.

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