Holy Joe and Thin Reid
It’s easy to complain that too many Americans are apolitical, apathetic or downright cynical about political change.
It’s even easier to understand why they are.
Holy Joe Lieberman came out swinging today, more or less vowing that when it really counts, he will join the Republicans in blocking an up/down vote on health care if there is any of that there socialist-commie guv-ment option mentioned. Thanks Joe. One more reminder why I still have zero regrets for not having voted for Gore-Lieberman in 2000. I’m a founding member of those who were “premature anti-Liebermans.”
The best part of this whole sick scene was the milquetoast mumbling that then poured forth from the might Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate Majority Leader who only yesterday said there would absolutely, positively be some sort of public option in the senate version of the bill. But now Reid was saying that old Holy Joe was a fine fellow and not a problem — even of he could single-handedly thwart health care passage. Said Reid:
“I don’t have anyone that I’ve worked harder with, have more respect for, in the Senate than Joe Lieberman. As you know, he’s my friend. There are a lot of senators–Democrat and Republicans–who don’t like [parts of this bill]… Sen. Lieberman will let us get on the bill, and he’ll be involved in the amendment process.”
Cynical? Apathetic? Why should anyone feel that way?
October 27th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Thanks. A BIG reason I couldn’t pull the donkey lever in 2000 was the thought of putting this jackass in the White House. He just never goes away.
October 28th, 2009 at 8:34 am
CALL HIS OFFICE:
Washington
706 Hart Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-4041 Voice
(202) 224-9750 Fax
For TTY Call 711
Connecticut
One Constitution Plaza
7th Floor
Hartford, CT 06103
(860) 549-8463 Voice
(800) 225-5605 In CT
For TTY Call 711
Directions
He’s not up for re election til 2012 so the only pressure is to flood his office with calls. They don’t like it.
I did. Its fun. Had to leave a voice mail. Lots of times you can get staff, but that line is busy. Duh.
I politely told him to come clean; be a mensch irrespective of how much his soul had been bought and paid for…enough is enough time to stand up and do the right thing.
October 28th, 2009 at 8:35 am
I detest Lieberman and think that Reid is generally a milquetoast, but I’m not sure I’d suggest to Reid that the best way to deal with this egomaniacal asshole this particular week would be to call him names in public. This will be resolved with behind the scenes pressure on Holy Joe or not at all. Personally I’m resolved to give material and moral support to any and every effort to end Lieberman’s political career when his term is up. Reid probably has to grin and bear it for the press in coming days while he figures out in political terms what Lieberman is charging for blow jobs these days and if there’s some quid-pro-quo on some upcoming bill or other insider bullshit dear to Lieberman that might be worth it, but everyone else interested in health care and the future of the Democratic Party should noisily declare that this will be the death knell of any further Lieberman-for-Lieberman Senate bids. The point isn’t to get mad, it’s to either get what we need from Lieberputz, i.e. his cloture vote, or get even.
October 28th, 2009 at 8:37 am
Thanks Anna – I’m calling right now and since I’m from CA and not a voter in Joe’s calculus I’m going to pledge money to any Lieberman opponent if he votes against cloture.
October 28th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Not that it matters, but Lieberman seems to share a very grating and large personality flaw with his man-love, John McCain, which is a kind of mega-narcissism that rises well above the self-love and egomania that’s endemic to most successful politicians. My guess is that his fundamental motivation is that he sees an opportunity to grab the spotlight from Our Lady of the Lobsters, Olympia Snowe, and turn the political moment into The Joe Lieberman Show. Totally warped human.
October 28th, 2009 at 9:15 am
And the Big O is where these days…?
October 28th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Just get everybody to call. Apparently that is the only way to dog his ass right now. Doesnt matter if we are one of his constituents— his vote affects every single person in the country.
C’mon. Get down. Call him. Tell everyone you know to call him. Just paste in his contact details. Can also fax or email. probably flooding with faxes would be fun. Just keep running your letter through.
October 28th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Marc – I hate to be snarky, but Lieberman was put on the 2000 ticket precisely to mollify folks who were obsessed with dissing Bill Cliinton. Sound like anyone you know ?
October 28th, 2009 at 9:54 am
SIGN THE EMAIL PETITION TO REID:
http://boldprogressives.org/majorityvote/p-openleft
That was from Oct 14th. Not sure if still viable, but it took my submission.
I also sent a FAX to Lieberman’s office.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:02 am
http://www.delawareliberal.net/2009/10/28/lieberman-literally-in-bed-with-druginsurance-lobby/
Yuck.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:43 am
The House has just or is just voting to recognize Confucius.
WTF?
October 28th, 2009 at 10:54 am
…and a vote to congratulate some collegiate lacrosse team.
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October 28th, 2009 at 11:17 am
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/28/liebermans-filibuster-ann_n_336942.html
October 28th, 2009 at 11:56 am
“Marc – I hate to be snarky, but Lieberman was put on the 2000 ticket precisely to mollify folks who were obsessed with dissing Bill Cliinton.”
If that was precisely the reason, then why didn’t Gore put Russ Feingold on the ticket in 2000? Feingold was way tougher than Lieberman during the impeachment hearing. He was the only Democratic vote to continue proceedings against Clinton, which pleased Hitchens to death. Hitchens mentions this in his book about Clinton.
October 28th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Lieberman has been a corporate whore and a frontman for AIPAC for years. The only business left in CT are pharma (Bayer, Pfizer) and Big Insurance (Aetna, Hartford). Is it any surprise?
As a CT native, it just shocks me how little the left can mount a political offense against this prick. NOBODY IN CONNECTICUT LIKES HIM EXCEPT THE RELIGIOUS CONSERVATIVE COMMUNITY. Minorities can’t stand him, Labor Unions have no use for him and the Dem establishment were appalled when he decided to create his own party out of spite.
October 28th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Stop bitching and CALL or FAX or email his office!
October 28th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
I registered as a Green in 2000 because I can’t stand the arrogant bastard. Unfortunately, he’s not the only one (i.e. Evan Bayh, thank god Hillary wasn’t nominated or that would be the VP). All the big babies will have their giant egos coddled and their prostrates tickled in due course. Now’s the time for horse trading and they’re just taking advantage of that.
October 28th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Shouldn’t hate to say it Reg, it’s true. Not just bsessed with dissing Clinton, but with reducing our national discourse to idiocy just because they were made fools of by those pimping Whitewater, etc. Sideshow Bob’s “arrogant bastard” was a silly invention of an infotainment world that still honors the likes of Christopher Hitchens.
THAT said, picking Leiberman IS the best place to start if your trying to argue Gore lost it for himself. Ultimately, however, it’s a line that just won’t wash, at least among those who read the tripe Marc Cooper was writing about Al Gore, circa 1999.
October 28th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
“why didn’t Gore put Russ Feingold on the ticket in 2000? Feingold was way tougher than Lieberman during the impeachment hearing.”
Good question David. But we know why Feingold doesn’t get on national tickets, don’t we ? He’s not enough of a team-player corporate Dem to run at that national level. Still doesn’t change the fact that given his generic status in 2000 as “centrist”, Lieberman’s only positive was that he had rather sanctimoniously criticized Clinton. Without that, I doubt he would have been on the ticket. He sucks as a campaigner and brought nothing to compensate for Gore’s own weaknesses (mostly matters of style and “persona”) as a candidate. He also had some dicy positions on Social Security and a few other things that Gore had to paper over. As it turned out, Gore’s choosing to keep Clinton at arm’s length was a bad idea. Either way it was a political call and Gore’s political instincts proved to be lousy.
October 28th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
“an infotainment world that still honors the likes of Christopher Hitchens.”
For good reason. His occasional face on cable television “news” shows might be the only great reason to watch them. Goodness knows that I don’t agree with him much at all since he has become a foreign policy neo-con (I am also a church-goer), but the man is, whatever else may be said of him, (1) wicked smart and (2) entertaining to listen to and watch. There are very few YouTube clips of him that I haven’t seen; all of them that I have seen I have thoroughly enjoyed. I haven’t given up on him seeing the light and renouncing his past/present flirtations with right hawk positions.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Speaking of old Christopher, here is his opinion on the left’s obsession with health care, at the end of an answer to a question on what he considers a more serious danger to their health they apparently still don’t care to see….he was talking to you Mr. President:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS374kobqbE&feature=related
October 29th, 2009 at 4:27 am
Jim,
Surely you can tell that this recording happened very shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, when Hitchens was trying to wave the flag about the scope of the cultural conflict he saw between liberal countries and what he considered religious fascism. His stupid little quip, made, I’ll wager 7 years ago or so, was not about the current attempt to insure the uninsured. So no, he was not talking to Obama. He was talking to his former Trotskyite (or is it “ist”?) friends who he felt were not showing the proper mettle.
You either know nothing about Hitchens and are overjoyed to finally have someone smart seemingly talking for you (when ultimately he isn’t making your anti-health care argument), or you’re just being dishonest.
I’d lay money down that not only does Hitchens support some form of government health care, he probably supports single-payer.
But your post is disgraceful on even another axis if that’s possible. For a guy who (in grand self-congratulation) claims to take the right to task on so many issues, you certainly let this woman’s, mainly incoherent, but also insipid and putrid question go with a pass.
Leaving aside for a moment, the slippery definition of the “left” that you guys conveniently employ, I marvel at your astonishing distance from the facts when you say of the left that they don’t care to see the threat you see in such clear terms. Is this the left that voted en masse for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Is this the left that is sending more troops into Afghanistan as we speak? Is this the left that almost universally voted for your panopticon wet dream?
Jim, you certainly must credit Obama with keeping us safe from terrorism for nearly a year now, or is that merely the tail end of Bush’s vigorous efforts spilling over into this new administration, but somehow just the very opposite of how Bush’s economic policies worked? Really, Jim, I’m just asking you to make some sense.
October 29th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Thanks to Norman Lear on the Huff Po we now have a new fun expression for putzs like Lieberman (and Hitchens)
Backpfeifengesicht
German compound word for a ‘face that should be slapped’
October 29th, 2009 at 8:44 am
I’m wondering if Jim R also believes Hitchens’ definition of al Qaeda as being run by the Saudi oligarchy and his questioners designation of the US’ enemies as “usually being the good guys.”
I guess it’s fun to pick and choose in order to thumb one’s nose, but if he thinks Hitchens and his questioner are on to some worthwhile analysis, it means that Bush should probably have been bombing Saudi Arabia rather than running up trillions of dollars of debt that made us more dependent on them, and that post-Sept 11 is the one of the first times we’ve been on the right side of a war. I’m certainly not endorsing those views, but don’t try to rub these Berkeley internecine bloviations in my face as though I’m supposed to genuflect or give a shit. If you want to go back to 2002 and defend Hitchens genius over the past 7 years you’re more than welcome. But you’ve got an awful lot of dead people and strategic failures of monumental proportions that need some ‘splainin’. This is childish, disingenuous shit. Embarrassing, frankly, to you – not to me or anyone whose views on these matters I identify with.
October 29th, 2009 at 9:02 am
“this woman’s, mainly incoherent, but also insipid and putrid question go with a pass.”
Of course I knew the time frame of this clip Dan, silly. It was obvious. What you seemed to miss was the relevance of it today and how not much has changed.
While we have a war that needs winning, the President and the Left are consumed with the war on health care ‘reform’, trying to shock life into another frankenstein monster of a social program to piggyback on top of two that already exist with 30 Trillion in unfunded mandates.
Though you are one of the more sane ‘progressives’ Dan, your response to the common sense and very coherent questio of this ladies question in the clip, has got me wondering if you are just pretending.
October 29th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Jim,
OK, that’s fair, but I just don’t think either of these is part of a zero-sum game. It’s not impossible to both push a domestic agenda and a foreign one at the same time. There is a limit to attention of course, but it seems they have been managing pretty well so far.
We’ll be forever at loggerheards on whether government programs work, so ther’s probably not much fruit in that side of the conversation.
But the question at hand, and the question we’ve faced for the last 7 years, is what the best way to fight terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism is. Given the context of Hitchens’ comments, I still find them largely silly, but somewhat appropriate. We were listening to loony comments by Susan Sontag at the time, and just maybe the comment Hitchens made was an acceptable short hand for the attitude he saw on the far left. But it’s got no applicaiton today. Al Qaeda is in a shambles all over the place (except possible in Pakistan, where we’re seemingly stirring up trouble across the border and making the problem somewhat worse).
In no way do I think a military answer is always out in this fight, but I do think it makes a lot more sense to pursue this through legal channels, through relationships with other intelligence agencies, possible special forces actions, and economic tools where possible. I’m not sure it makes much sense to garrison another country with tens or hundreds of thousands of troops.
So, since that basic question is unresolved (or you might argue that Iraq has resolved it for us), and becuase the conext is vastly different than it was when Hitchens was making his comments, I don’t think it is relevant.
On a side note, I happen to agree with Hitchens that there is a fundamental and possibly implacable cultural fight going on here, that the 9/11 attacks, the Van Gogh killing, the Danish cartoons fiasco, and the Taliban all demonstrate. And we should be firm in the face of the desire for Sharia courts and the noxious religious anti-hate proclamation that is bouncing around the UN. The threat is real, but let’s just be careful about the scope we grant to it.
I also think we’ve been stumbling around a bit like an enraged giant now for 7 years, and while it must have been fun to land on that aircraft carrier, it’s not clear that we’re materially safer than we were before.
October 29th, 2009 at 10:47 am
That is link to official summary of the health care bill. It would be nice if someone understands the particulars…like fears over stripping of Medicare and premiums rising etc.
Interesting note in Huff Po article on the breaking news item is that Repubs capitulation to this version has to do with making themselves look good for the 2010 mid term elections.
http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2009/10/affordable-health-care.shtml
October 29th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
That former military guy who was on a civilian mission in Afghan who just resigned summed up the situation nicely. As has the guy who should have gotten the Nobel for setting up girls schools throughout Afghanistan. The Pentagon has had him round to try and figure out how to learn from doing something humane and strategic that weans people off dependency of war.
Whats needed is a Marshall Plan of sorts. Someone else put that forward, too. Can’t remember who. Rather than all the stupid money, death and bluster on trying to nail jelly to a wall both Iraq –particularly Iraq was desperate to just have a sane civil infrastructure built–and Iran as well. The huge flood of militants that gained traction from all the stupid blunders, insults and wanton violence committed by the US military could have been avoided.
October 29th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Not Iran…oops. I meant Afghanistan.
( Iran had a good thing going 1950 something til we deposed it)
October 29th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubUCJv58
Fuck Hitchens, and the rest of the “contrarian left-wing intellectuals” who beat the drum for Bush/Cheney during Iraq. How they retain any credibility is beyond me.
October 30th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Ok, reg. First I think the fact this woman said our enemies were usually the good guys is a common belief on the far left, so I actually think it gave her concern about the left’s silence on the Islamic radial behaviors cred. She wasn’t a right winger.
Second, are you saying the Saudi Muslims were not feeding money to Al Qaeda, maybe even member of its government?
Third, there are obvious reasons for not attacking the Saudi’s, the least of which is the worlds dependence on their oil for its life’s blood. And of course they didn’t invade two of its neighbors, try to develop a nuclear weapon, commit genocide on its population, and defy years of UN sanctions, and claimed to have a nuclear weapon their crazy f-king leader could have supplied, along with chemical weapons we know he had, to the crazier f-ks that attacked us….just to name a few good reasons to do what needed doing.
I don’t expect this response to convince you the civilized world and the Iraqi people now have a safer world for the long term. Neoliberals and the left are noted by their failure to respond to crisis with anything but analysis to justify atrocious behavior, even with our own domestic murderers…. an army of defense lawyers.
As we speak President Obama is looking for a way not to do what needs doing to clean up the crazies in Afghanistan. He will send a few more troops, not what the military is asking for, then pull out the next time the military ask for the remainder, making Iran’s nuke-seeking nut look like a school yard bully in comparison to the capture of Pakistan’s existing nukes to the blatant nuts.
I predicted the President would waffle in Afghanistan. I don’t blame him directly. It is in his leftist DNA from years of association with same. He cannot bring himself to go against his basic core beliefs. The world is going to catch holy, literally, hell for the can-kicking in years to come.
October 30th, 2009 at 8:57 am
I fault Bush for not solving the Afghan problem before taking on Iraq. He mistakenly kicked the Afghan can down the road by underestimating the tenacity of al Qaeda and the Taliban, even in the face of plenty of evidence from the Russian’s experience. At least he didn’t kick the can on purpose.
I don’t fault Bush for recognizing the time was at hand for the civilized world to finally crush the can in Iraq. But, again, underestimating the effort that would be needed to finish it. He stuck with it and finished it, and the world and Iraqi’s are the better for it.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/opinion/29kristof.html?_r=2
Read this and stop the natter and nonsense once and for all.
This Op Ed sums up the ONLY solution.
October 31st, 2009 at 9:33 am
Anna Churchill: “It would be nice if someone understands the particulars…like fears over stripping of Medicare and premiums rising etc.
Anna, good point. Some of the particulars regarding Medicare is that it has been used as a vote getter by both sides for so long, it appears to most of its recipients as a “right/entitlement” as opposed to say an insurance deal for those that didn’t have any after retirement. It has far exceeded in cost what the original gusitmates are.
Now that Obama is curtailing those benefits, cutting back on things like hip and knee replacements, bypass surgery, cancer care, transplants etc. for the elderly, those folk are feeling abandoned. I’m almost 65 and I have no doubt that Medicare will barely cover me in the future, if my cancer returns, so, I don’t plan to retire, besides, I enjoy what I’m doing.
Others? Not so much and they want to retire on what they expected to receive. Now they are really afraid because they thought the government would take care of them and they didn’t provide for themselves (for those that could – and it is probably a significant number whatever it is).