The NYT notes today that the Democratic leaders in the Senate are aware of the disgust and disappointment over Joe Lieberman, but they’re not especially concerned about it.
There is much speculation that the Democrats will run Mr. Lieberman out of their caucus (he now sits with Democrats and votes with them on most issues not related to the war) if they widen their margin in the Senate after the November elections. But Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate Democratic leader, has pledged that he would not disown Mr. Lieberman under those circumstances and said he considered him a good friend.
A member of the Senate Democratic leadership, who insisted on not being identified, said: “The bloggers want us to get rid of him. It ain’t happening.” He added: “We need every vote. He’s with us on everything but the war.”
This doesn’t come as too big a surprise. Lieberman told The Hartford Courant this month, “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. As far as he is concerned, I will retain my seniority, et cetera, no matter how many Democrats there are next year.” Asked on Tuesday whether Lieberman’s chairmanship was at risk in the next Congress, Reid said succinctly, “No.”
I continue to think this is absurd, in part because Lieberman is a lousy committee chairman, and in part because a larger Democratic majority would mean we wouldn’t need to placate him anymore. Nevertheless, at the risk of sounding picky, the notion that Lieberman is “with us on everything but the war” is not only wrong, it’s foolish.
As Brookings’ Thomas E. Mann, a non-partisan political scholar, told the Times, “It’s one thing to have a principled position on an issue at odds with that of your party. It’s another to become the champion of the other party’s nominee in a presidential election.”
Exactly. To read that quote from the party leader balking at bloggers’ dismay, one is led to believe Lieberman is a reliable Democrat on everything except the war. I suspect that leader isn’t paying very close attention to recent headlines.
Even if we put aside the many issues on which Lieberman has ignored the party’s interests — Social Security, Bush’s judicial nominees, the White House “faith-based” initiative, tort reform, school vouchers, the “blame Hollywood” movement — consider that just this week Lieberman said he’s considering giving the keynote address at the Republican National Convention, and said he thinks it’s reasonable to ask whether the likely Democratic presidential nominee is a “Marxist.”
Ed Kilgore, hardly a lefty ideologue, argued the other day:
Back when Lieberman first endorsed McCain, Ken Rudin of NPR did a useful analysis of precedents. The last example he could find of a Member of Congress endorsing the opposing party’s presidential candidate without retribution was in 1956, when Adam Clayton Powell, at that point the only African-American Member of Congress, endorsed Eisenhower. You can understand why Democrats might have refrained from punishing him. But since then, three congressional Democrats endorsed other candidates (John Bell Williams of Mississippi and Albert Watson of SC in 1964, and John Rarick in 1968), and all were stripped of their seniority in the House. Unlike Lieberman, all three were, if nothing else, faithfully reflecting the views of their constituents. […]
This is, in sum, the Line You May Not Cross if you choose to identify yourself as a Republican or as a Democrat. John McCain surely understands that; had he followed the entreaties of some of his own staff in 2004 by endorsing — much less joining the ticket of — John Kerry, he would have been stripped of his party prerogatives instantly and eternally.
The fact that Joe Lieberman hasn’t just endorsed McCain, but has actively campaigned with him from New Hampshire to Florida to Iraq, and has also made it clear he’d be happy to speak at the Republican National Convention on his behalf, is an indisputable self-expulsion from the Democratic ranks, certainly made no less definitive by his semi-self-expulsion in 2006. […]
[S]orry, no degree of “independence” or “bipartisanship” or “personal friendship” can justify what he’s done in supporting the Republican candidate for president. He’s picked sides in the one choice that most defines party, and those who continue to admire him should accept the consequences.
I don’t doubt that Lieberman has been good friends with Reid, Durbin, Schumer, and others in the party leadership for years. They’ve been to each other’s homes, they’ve traveled together, their families know one another. I’m sure there’s genuine affection between them on a personal level.
But, painful though it may be, there’s a time for putting those personal feelings aside, and that time is upon us. Lieberman has betrayed his party and his constituents; to reward him for his behavior sets a dangerous precedent and weakens the party when it needs to be strong.