Will Lieberman lose if Democrats win?

April 14, 2008

At this point, Democrats everywhere are pretty familiar with the Senate caucus’ “Lieberman Problem.” Aside from his problematic votes and rhetoric, Joe Lieberman wants, apparently more than just about everything, to be the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. If Harry Reid denied him the gavel, Lieberman would leave the party, and create a 50-50 split in the chamber.

Of course, if Senate Democrats have a good year, and it appears that they will, that won’t be a problem come 2009. Bob Novak reports that Lieberman may lose big if Democrats win big.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s friends are certain that if Democrats expand their one-vote Senate edge in this year’s elections, they will kick him out of the Senate Democratic caucus and, therefore, oust him as Homeland Security Committee chairman.

Lieberman risked the usual punishment of ejection from the party caucus when he endorsed Republican Sen. John McCain for president and actively campaigned for him. But with Democrats in a Senate majority of only 51 to 49, they would lose control if Lieberman defected to the Republicans.

I’ve heard competing stories about this, but I haven’t heard that Dems would kick Lieberman out of the caucus altogether. It seems far more likely that Reid would stop by Lieberman’s office and say, “Joe, I’m afraid this committee is too important; I’ve decided to put a Democrat in the chairman’s seat.” If Lieberman threatens to bolt, and Reid has a comfortable majority, the ultimatums probably won’t carry much weight.

But there’s always been one thing I don’t understand about Lieberman’s motivations: why does he want that chairmanship so much? It’s not like he actually tries to do any work with the committee anyway.

Way back in December, Brian Beutler had a great piece today on “The Year in Oversight,” and notes a point that often goes overlooked:

There certainly have been gaffes, softballs, and missed opportunities. And the most obvious are found in the Senate Committee on Homeland Security — the Senate’s version of Rep. Henry Waxman’s Oversight Committee in the House. Unlike Waxman’s enthusiastic probing, the Senate chair conducted zero proactive investigations into Bush administration malfeasance. It’s chairman? Connecticut’s Joseph Lieberman.

In 2006, seeking re-election, Lieberman said this committee was his top priority, and he was desperate to return to the Senate so he could wield the gavel. And now that he has the authority he sought, he’s decided not to conduct any real oversight at all.

He seems to have desperately sought a chairman’s gavel just for the sake of having it — Lieberman wanted power he had no intention of using. Instead of a Senate committee that functions as it should, Lieberman just treads water, using his gavel as a flotation device. By any reasonable measure, it’s an embarrassing waste of what’s supposed to be the Senate’s watchdog committee.

What’s more, Lieberman’s neglect is made all the more obvious by the performance of Rep. Henry Waxman, the California Democrat who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform — Lieberman’s House counterpart — who uses the committee’s oversight powers as a successful watchdog should.

For well over a year now, this has been the tale of two chairmen, only one of whom is doing his duty. Roll Call had this depressing report in October:

The day news broke that the Iraqi government was revoking the license of Blackwater USA over a questionable Baghdad shootout that killed 17 civilians, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) announced plans for hearings to probe the State Department’s reliance on private security contractors.

On that same day — Sept. 17 — Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) announced two firefighting grants for the towns of Bolton and Willington in his home state.

Though the two committees have similar investigative powers and mandates to uncover waste, fraud and abuse of government funds, Waxman has held eight hearings on Iraq and contracting abuses this year, while Lieberman has held only one on reconstruction challenges in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

And though Waxman rarely has missed an opportunity to fire off angry letters to the administration over potential waste, fraud, abuse and misconduct among government contractors, Lieberman — along with his predecessor and current ranking member, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) — has shown relatively little interest in tackling those issues.

And what of all the contracting abuses that Waxman is scrutinizing? Lieberman said he gets “angry when I hear about fraud or corruption in the spending of American dollars,” but it’s not one of his “priorities.”

As far as I can tell, the only reason Lieberman wants to be committee chairman is so that some Democrat, who might take accountability seriously, can’t be committee chairman.

“As far as I can tell, the only reason Lieberman wants to be committee chairman is so that some Democrat, who might take accountability seriously, can’t be committee chairman.”

Yup, that’s about it. I suspect he and his buddies on the other side of the aisle have been laying their plans for some time now, and so far it’s working.

Soon, however. Soon……

  • The point that everyone is missing is that Lieberman is “wielding the gavel—as a shield for his friends in the Bu$h administration. He’ll keep the gavel until January 2009, when he no longer needs it—and then he’ll become part of the stonewalling in the Senate to keep his “masters” out of trouble. He clearly knows that this is his last term; he lied through his teeth to beat Lamont, and a good many constituents who bought him this chance are now experiencing “buyer’s remorse.”

    The People of Connecticut cannot impeach him, so their only hopes lie in (1) Joe Lie gets snagged in the criminalities of Bu$h, Joe Lie realizes that his butt is in a major sling and resigns, or (3) Joe Lie does the United States a favor—and dies.

  • I can’t tell that Lieberman is interested in anything these days except Iraq, Iran, and the rest of the Middle East. It’s all that we hear him comment about. Homeland Security? Not so much.

    Getting a one-vote Democratic majority in the Senate has been well worth the pain of putting up with Lieberman. If the margin is only two votes next year, it should be Goodbye Joe. And good riddance.

  • Lieberman is the putz that will take over the Homeland when the rightwing putsch takes over the government. He’s a sleeper freeper.

  • He’s doing an excellent job as committee chairman of protecting Bush’s ass, making sure that no investigations go forward through his committee. It will be too late when dems win big to do any good in halting the present activities of this administration. But Jerusalem Joe will be able to cause trouble for dems and the new dem president if he remained chairman. He’s done the job his handlers wanted him to do…nothing. It’s obvious to all because no one believes there was not one single incidence requiring oversight and investigation committed by the Bush administration but according to Lieberman Bush is pure as the driven snow. Why CT residents turn a blind eye to this suck ass is a mystery because the rest of the country see him for the Bush lackey he is. Jerusalem Joe has got to go…and go he will. I wouldn’t let him even sit in the same room as the other committee members…I would make him go somewhere else to read his newspaper and twiddle his thumbs.

  • For me, Lieberman’s positions on issues and support of McCain and seat on the Homeland Security committee, etc., has always been about Israel. I think his supporters want him to remain hawkish, even belligerent, towards Iran and that dovetails (ahem, pardon the mixing of metaphors) nicely with McCain. I think that all other issues pale in comparison to the safety of Israel for Lieberman. Sadly, he seems to have sold his soul to the devil in order to gain the illusion of safety.

    Homer

  • I see several others have made the point already, but I’ll chime in anyhow: I’m sure Lieberman wanted the position specifically to prevent any meaningful oversight of the Bush administration.

  • Probably the last thing the Republican’ts and Connecticut for LIEberman want is for America to realize they are neglecting Home Land Security so that we HAVE to “Fight them Over There”, which is exactly where LIEberman wants our army, between Tehran and Jeruslem.

    Your last sentence nails it, they want to keep the gavel out of Democratic hands.

  • Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s friends are certain that if Democrats expand their one-vote Senate edge in this year’s elections, they will kick him out of the Senate Democratic caucus and, therefore, oust him as Homeland Security Committee chairman.

    All I can say is “gawd, I f—ing hope so.”

    Why can’t the good folks in CT boot his ass out?

  • I tend to agree with some of the above comments. Jerusalem Joe — God, I love that moniker — is there strictly to provide cover for the Bush Administration. That’s his sole goal. He’s completely on the dark side now.

    We’re damn lucky, in a way, that he’s not Vice President right now. He’d have no problems whatsoever serving as a mole within the Gore Administration. He’d undermine Gore at every opportunity. And would be the Neocon Gore & Co. would have to constantly shout down during meetings. I thought at the time that it was a bad move to select him.

    I do think he knows he’s done. You could see him lying all through his last election. I think if McCain wins, then he’ll kick and scream like hell before we’re able to have him removed, even if the Democratic majority is near 60. And the wingers will absolutely pitch a major fit if we get rid of him in that event. McCain will come out and say, as a good faith effort, that we should keep Holy Joe in charge of Homeland Security, in order to prove that we want to work with him.

    If Hillary gets the nomination and wins, he’s absolute toast, as ruthless as the Clintons are. He has, after all, endorsed McCain. Hard to see Obama resisting pressure to get rid of him either, although he worries me sometimes. In either case, the wingers, as I said, insist on us keeping him as a good faith thing.

  • That’s how a Republican does his government job – by not doing it. If the thug is really dedicated, he does the opposite of what his job is supposed to be.

  • Lieberman wants the chairmanship so that he can block investigations and accountability of the Bush regime. Yes, I said REGIME.

    If Senate Dems had any balls they’d strip Lieberman of the chairmanship and let the chips fall where they may.

  • I assume the Dems will gain seats in both houses, but lose the presidency. In that case, my fantasy is that they’ll deny Lieberman the chairmanship, kick him out of the caucus, and vote him down when McCain tries to give him a cabinet post.

    I’m sure they’ll be too candy-assed to do that, but a guy can dream, can’t he?

  • I still remember the day Al Gore announced his running mate that I was flat out baffled. First I said, “Who’s that?” Then when I learned about him, I said, “But why?”

    Nowadays, Lieberman’s motives are anybody’s guess, but I wish they would throw him out of the party, if not tar and feather him as well.

  • I detest Lieberman, as any good progressive should at this point.

    But it always bothers me that criticism of him so frequently verges on, or as in the case of the moron at 14, verges straight into, anti-Semitism. There are millions of American Jews like me who vehemently disagree with the quisling Senator about Middle East policy and cannot foresee peace for Israel through endless serial wars of the kind Joe clearly gets off on; but when you insult him with names like “Jerusalem Joe,” you insult us too, and give ammunition to the real anti-Semites.

  • What I’ve never truly understood is why Dems need Lieberman so badly. What’s the difference between 50-50 and 59-41? They still can’t pass much without the magic number of 60 to beat the filibuster. In fact, it would probably be better if they were 50/50, because then that nullifies any Republican claims that they have the majority but aren’t doing what they promised to accomplish (while blocking everything through process and procedure). They should have kicked him out long ago, used his chairmanship to push more oversight, their 50/50 status to deflect complaints of inaction, and stopped lending credence to anything Lieberman says or believes in.

    I hope you read this CB, I’d love to hear your opinion on this. Maybe I’m totally wrong, but maybe somebody needs to start telling the powers that be, so that they do something now and affect the election instead of when it’s too late.

  • If Joe Lie had been still any sort of half-decent human being, he’d have at least done some probing into *domestic* waste and fraud, vis Katrina. But, no; not even that moved him into any kind of action.

    And dajafi (@11) is absolutely right; if Joe’s actions are motivated by his overwhelming love of Israel, then his brain circuits must be fried to a crisp, because he’s absolutely *not* doing Israel any favours. Israel and its people need peace, and peace has to be negotiated with its neighbours. The hotheads who’d like to see all Israel’s neighbours bombed into extinction aren’t seeing beyond the tips of their own noses…

  • Sorry. That’s dajafi @ 17, not 11.

    Roby D, @18,

    As far as I understand it, one of the advantages of having a majority — even of a single voice — is that you get to determine who heads the various committees. (I bet that, if we were truly 50:50, Dick Cheney, the tie-breaker, would get the power to name them.) And the heads of the committees are the people who decide what gets investigated/discussed and what doesn’t. Not everyone in the Senate is as much of lame duck as Reid or an outright traitor like Joe Lie. And, even Joe Lie can, sometimes, be counted on voting with the Dems — as long as the issue is strictly in the social sphere.

  • The organizing resolution that apportioned, chairs, committee representation, etc, in the present Senate runs till Jan 2009, regardless of any interim party changes by sitting senators.

    Joe could leave the Dem caucus tomorrow, and nothing would happen.
    The Dem caucus could throw him out tomorrow and nothing would happen.

    The Dem caucus wants him. They like him. He’s an old friend, one of the boys. If you’re clubbable, it doesn’t matter if you’re wrong, your influence is pernicious and your actions reprehensible.

  • I am convinced that the reason why the Bush administration is so adamant about retroactive immunity BEFORE 9-11 is because they were eavesdropping on the Gore-Lieberman campaign and got SOMETHING on Lieberman. Lieberman has a classic case of Stockholm syndrome and acts exactly like someone who is being blackmailed. What they have on him I have no idea.

  • Davis X, Machina is correct in post #21. The organizing resolution fixed party control through the end of this session. The fact that Lieberman is still there speaks to the true feelings of Democratic Senators.

  • I think it’s an internal vote of the Senate Democratic caucus that would throw Lieberman overboard, not just the word of the leader. Let’s assume that the entire class of ’06 and later will vote to throw Lieberman overboard seeing at they’ve all never served a single day in the Senate with him as a Democrat. That’s McCaskill, Brown (OH), Whitehouse, Webb, Tester, Casey, Sanders, Cardin, & Klobuchar. Nine votes. Will there be another 16-17 votes to throw out Lieberman? I’d say yes.

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