{"id":16016,"date":"2008-06-27T10:00:05","date_gmt":"2008-06-27T14:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/16016.html"},"modified":"2008-06-27T10:00:05","modified_gmt":"2008-06-27T14:00:05","slug":"lieberman-wants-to-be-judged-on-the-job-that-hes-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/lieberman-wants-to-be-judged-on-the-job-that-hes-done\/","title":{"rendered":"Lieberman wants to be judged ‘on the job that he’s done’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Lieberman, now fully immersed in his role as an attack dog for John McCain’s campaign, had an interesting chat<\/a> with ABC News’ Jake Tapper yesterday, and touched on a few topics of note.<\/p>\n

Lieberman’s future was of particular interest, and whether his chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is at risk if the Democratic caucus grows after November.<\/p>\n

“It might, I don’t know,” Lieberman acknowledged. “Obviously that’s up to my colleagues in the Senate Democratic Caucus, presumably they’ll be more of them next year than there are today. But, of course, I hope that I’m judged on my voting record, on my life-long membership in the Democratic Party, and on the job that I’ve done on all the committees on which I serve, including the Homeland Security Committee, which I chair.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Even if we put aside all of Lieberman’s other problems — and my goodness, there are so many — and focus exclusively on “the job” that he’s done on the Governmental Affairs Committee, he still<\/i> deserves to have his gavel taken away.<\/p>\n

Why? Because Lieberman doesn’t seem willing to do any work<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Maybe he wants the kind [of political world] we had for most of the past six years. With one party running the legislative and executive branches, there was no oversight, no accountability, and now we’re stuck in the middle of a war \u2014 we can’t stay and we can’t leave. Maybe more partisanship could have avoided all this.<\/p>\n

Lieberman leads the Senate committee on government affairs, but apparently avoiding the “partisan politics of polarization,” as he calls it, is a good excuse not to do his job. Campaigning [in 2006], he said he would make sure the Bush administration turned over records on internal White House deliberations — likely to embarrass the president — from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. After the election, he changed his mind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lieberman’s most notable accomplishment with this committee over the last two years had to do with seating arrangements. Literally — Lieberman made it so that senators sit D-R-D-R-D, instead of Dems on one side and Republicans on the other. Other than this, the committee has precious little to show for the entire 110th Congress.<\/p>\n

He wants to be “judged” on the job that he’s done? Seriously<\/i>?
\n
\nThe interview with Tapper had a few more interesting insights.<\/p>\n

Lieberman made the comment in the midst of acknowledging that on domestic issues ranging from the economy to health care his positions more closely align with Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois. “On domestic policy, you’re right. I’m closer on a lot of issues, not all, to Obama,” Lieberman said. “But the big difference for me is, McCain will actually get something done.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think this makes any sense. On domestic policy, he thinks Obama’s correct, but McCain will “get something done.” But if McCain’s positions on domestic policy are wrong, what, exactly, is the value<\/i> in “getting something done”? It’s like looking at a track star who competes by running in the wrong direction and saying, “Yeah, but look how fast he is.”<\/p>\n

There was also this gem<\/a>:<\/p>\n

As a man of faith, an Orthodox Jew, Lieberman said he was “surprised” at “the words that Rev. Wright was saying” since they were so different from the Barack Obama he’s come to know. <\/p>\n

“In fairness we don’t know if Rev. Wright said these inflammatory, anti-American, racial comments every Sunday, but I would not continue to go to a synagogue where that kind of rhetoric was spoken,” Lieberman said, adding, “I think it did raise questions in people’s minds about why did he stay in the church that long,” but he said he would “take (Obama) at his word” and move on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Um, Joe? If you’re talking about this with a national news network, and questioning whether Obama’s lying about Wright’s sermons, you’re not taking Obama at his word, and you’re certainly not moving on.<\/p>\n

And just to add a disconcerting coda to all of this, the same day Lieberman talked with ABC, he also told<\/a> conservative moralist Bill Bennett that Democrats are “invested in a narrative of retreat and defeat in Iraq.”<\/p>\n

Lieberman really must go<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joe Lieberman, now fully immersed in his role as an attack dog for John McCain’s campaign, had an interesting chat with ABC News’ Jake Tapper yesterday, and touched on a few topics of note. Lieberman’s future was of particular interest, and whether his chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}