November 18, 2008

11/18: Netroots' Hopes Dashed

Early yesterday, liberal bloggers were excitedly buzzing about the news that DE Sen. Tom Carper -- a close ally of ex-John McCain surrogate/CT Sen. Joe Lieberman -- told The Hill that Lieberman needed to suffer "consequences" for his conduct during the presidential campaign. Lefty bloggers interpreted Carper's statement as "a stunning rebuke" that suggested that Lieberman's prospects of holding onto his chairmanship were in "serious trouble". However, the netroots' hopes were soon dashed when multiple sources reported that Senate Dems had reached a deal that would allow Lieberman to retain his chairmanship of the Homeland Security committee in exchange for giving up his chairmanship of his (less important) environmental subcommittee. Liberal bloggers were disgusted by the reported compromise, calling it "not acceptable". Glenn Greenwald was not surprised: "Nobody who has watched Congressional Democrats over the last many years could possibly have expected any other outcome. This is who they are and what they do."

LIEBERMAN: Pathetic. Just Pathetic.

Liberal bloggers are denouncing the reported compromise reached by Senate Dems, which allows Lieberman to retain his chairmanship of the Homeland Security committee in exchange for giving up his chairmanship of an environmental subcommittee:

• Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas: "[This compromise is] not acceptable. [...] Let Lieberman keep that subcommittee. No one gives a shit about it. The only thing that matters, the only thing that Lieberman wants, and the only thing we don't want him to have -- is the chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. If this is the 'starting point', and given the Senate Democrats' history of capitulations, expect Lieberman to come out of that meeting as majority leader."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "Seems like Joe has learned well from his Republican colleagues. He's trashed the president-elect and worked against Democratic Senate candidates. For that, he'll be rewarded. He's called the Democrats bluff. This is, of course, instructive for the small GOP caucus. They now know that the Democrats in the Senate are all talk, no action. Not a good signal to send. But, that's what Democrats do. They cave. Pathetic."

In a separate post, Moulitsas warns Senate Dems that the secret ballot will not protect them: "If senators believe they can hide from their constituents by voting for Lieberman in secret, they'll be mistaken. If Lieberman wins the vote, there will be calls to find out how they voted, and as far as I'm concerned, silence will be treated as a pro-Lieberman vote. Now these senators may not care what their constituents think. But given the American people voted overwhelmingly for change, keeping George Bush's best friend on Iraq in his committee, removing him in favor of someone in tune with popular sentiment (and the incoming administration) should be a no-brainer. And if the Senate spits in the face of this desire for change, then at the very least they should have the balls to own up to it."

LIEBERMAN II: What's The Logic Behind This?

Liberal bloggers think it makes no sense to strip Lieberman of his chairmanship of an Environment and Public Works subcommittee (where his views tend to align with those of his Dem colleagues) while allowing him to keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security committee (where his views tend to be at odds with those of his Dem colleagues):

• Daily Kos' Kagro X: "[You] couldn't design this worse if you tried. [...] The plan is to strip Lieberman of the subcommittee where he's actually a good Democrat, but leave him in control of the full committee where he stands in opposition to the [Barack] Obama administration, the Democratic Caucus, and most of America."
• BooMan: "If this reporting is correct, Lieberman will be stripped of a subcommittee chair that presides over an issue where he votes with the Democrats, and left in charge of a full and subcommittee (Armed Services Subcommittee on Airland) where he votes against the Democrats. That's fucking brilliant."

TAPPED's Tim Fernholz is one of the few liberal bloggers who's comfortable with the reported compromise: "My gut says that Lieberman should lose his position and basically be ostracized by his colleagues; what he did during the campaign was shameful, especially after Obama campaigned with him in his last dicey reelection. [...] At the same time, though, I'm not inclined to lose a vote in the Senate -- either to the Republican caucus, or, if you think he wouldn't go that far, just to uncooperative pique. It's all very easy to get excited about revenge but the end of the day I'm more excited passing progressive legislation, which needs to go through the Senate. Obviously the Senate Democratic majority has grown a good deal and sixty votes as a number doesn't matter as much as we like to think it does, but one more vote is one more vote. And I'm not sure his punishment would really have a lot of deterrent power -- are there are many Democratic Senators who would undermine the party in the same way as Lieberman except for their worries of losing their seniority? In the end, the only purpose it serves is getting a little vengeance. Which is nice, but doesn't get us anywhere. So let keep him in the caucus, give him a slap on the wrist...and have the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fund a primary challenger in 2012."

Open Left's Daniel De Groot, on the other hand, doesn't think Lieberman will ever be a reliable vote for Dems: "[Lieberman] is supposed to be socially liberal, and to want things like more health care, better schools, an equitable tax system and so forth. His constituents certainly want those things, but Lieberman is prepared to vote against his supposed beliefs and their interests if he doesn't get his way on a committee matter. [...] While I have little faith Lieberman's vote can really be counted on for key cloture votes on domestic and social issues important to the Democrats, I could understand what the Democrats are futilely trying to do here. I think it is the wrong thing to do, but I will be happy to admit I am wrong if this manoeuvre buys Lieberman as the 60th vote to get card-check, ENDA or a tax increase on the wealthy through the Senate. After all, you can't expect him to vote his conscience, he has just told you he doesn't have one."

LIEBERMAN III: Dems Capitulated? Shocking!

Most liberal bloggers aren't surprised that Senate Dems aren't willing to take away Lieberman's committee chairmanship:

• Salon's Greenwald: "Nobody who has watched Congressional Democrats over the last many years could possibly have expected any other outcome. This is who they are and what they do. The silver lining is that it will once again remind people, still euphoric over the election results, of this reality. And as the anger pours forth from people who raise money for Democrats and expended huge amounts of time and effort to elect Barack Obama, the more vindicated Senate Democrats will feel in what they just did. That's how they look centrist and bipartisan -- by infuriating their supporters, the perceived 'Left.' They don't believe in Sister Souljah moments; they believe in Sister Souljahism as an operating principle, a way of life."
• digby: "The minute I read this, this morning, I knew the fix was in. Corporate whore Tom Carper giving Holy Joe a good public scolding could be nothing more than kabuki. A deal had been reached and Joe was going to keep his gavel. They'd slap him with some kind of superficial 'sanction' and maybe he'd apologize, but that's the end of that. That appears to be the case. But then readers of this blog know that I never thought for a minute that he'd lose it. The current fetish for bipartisanship makes 'party discipline' oxymoronic."
• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "I should have expected this, since we are dealing with the Senate Democratic caucus. Threats of joining with Republicans have once again led to a compromise that overwhelmingly favors conservatives. Don't expect a fighting Democratic Senate over the next two years. If a group of conservative Democrats threatens to support a Republican filibuster unless their demands are met, then those demands will probably be met."
• MyDD's Josh Orton: "Lieberman [is] now likely to keep his gavel. And the sun will rise in the morning. [...] If this happens, Joe Lieberman will walk away as the most clever politician in all Washington. He played a game of chicken and won."

OBAMA: He Won Because His Supporters Are Idiots?

Conservative bloggers are promoting "How Obama Got Elected", an anti-Obama website created by right-wing talk show host John Ziegler. The website features a Zogby poll of 512 Obama voters and video footage of various Obama voters which suggest that Obama's voters were uninformed:

• Michelle Malkin: "How Obama got elected. Three words: Stupid people voted. Lots and lots of stupid people."
• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "This video, unfortunately, is not a joke. It's for real. And it sheds light, I think, on the sources of Obama's victory."
• AmSpec Blog's Robert Stacy McCain: "This is your brain on hope."
• Ace Of Spades: "How Obama Got Elected. Rank ignorance. They don't know which party controls Congress, and never heard of [Senate Maj. Leader Harry] Reid, [Rep. Barney] Frank, or [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi, but damn, do they know the media-approved misinformation that [Sarah] Palin wore a $150,000 wardrobe."
• RedState's Brian Faughnan: "This is a testament -- as if one was necessary -- to what the media covered as the central issues of the campaign. Maybe in 2012 we can expect better?"
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "...These results show the abysmal state of media coverage of Barack Obama. It's not that the voters couldn't absorb data provided to them by the Tanning Bed Media; these voters quite obviously learned plenty about Sarah Palin. In the video, the subjects demonstrate that by assigning every stupid thing said on the campaign trail to Palin whether she said it or not. Meanwhile, no one can figure out what Barack Obama said, how he conducted his campaign, or his political history. As for the video, without the Zogby poll, it would be hilarious but without context. Anyone can find fools for 'man on the street' interviews; Jay Leno does it as a regular staple for the Tonight Show. Zogby's poll shows that Ziegler's video is no anomaly."

Liberal blogger Nate Silver criticizes pollster John Zogby for conducting such a dubious poll: "The conservative website HowObamaGotElected.com reports that it has commissioned Zogby International to conduct a poll of 512 Barack Obama voters as part of what can best be described as a viral marketing effort to discredit the intelligence of Obama supporters. [...] To my mind, this survey meets the definition of a 'push poll', which the Random House Dictionary defines as 'a seemingly unbiased telephone survey that is actually conducted by supporters of a particular candidate and disseminates negative information about an opponent.' [...] Why Zogby International has decided to accept this client and conduct a survey in this fashion is not clear. I would hope, however, that any and all clients that need legitimate polling work conducted would take their business elsewhere. These clients include C-SPAN and Reuters, two organizations with longstanding and well-deserved reputations for accuracy and neutrality..."

CLINTON: Why Does Bill Always Have To Complicate Things?

Several liberal bloggers are concerned that ex-Pres. Bill Clinton's financial ties to foreign governments could jeopardize Hillary Clinton's ability to serve as Sec/State:

• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "This business concerning Hillary Clinton's potential appointment as Secretary of State and the finances of Bill Clinton's foundation seems like a real issue to me. There's nothing to be done about the fact that the Clinton Foundation has, in the past, gotten large sums of money from foreign governments. But I don't really see how you could have a Secretary of State whose husband was engaged in that kind of fundraising. Or, more generally, who's involved in the kind of freelance foreign policy work that Bill does as head of the Foundation."
• Oliver Willis: "If President Clinton's entanglements are going to make it a pain in the ass, I'd rather they not do it. Secretary of State, especially post-Bush, is an important and tough job. I think Sen. Clinton would do a good job at it, but if she's going to be hampered in negotiations with the President of Flubberstan because Bill Clinton is on the board of directors for Flubber, Inc. it's a waste."

Daily Kos' Scout Finch is still strongly in favor of Obama selecting Clinton as his Sec/State: "Hillary Clinton as SoS is a win-win. And given the fact Obama has repeatedly talked of admiring [Abraham] Lincoln's ability to bring even his most bitter rivals into his administration, it makes perfect sense. It gives her an important role in the Obama administration, continues to build her foreign policy cred, and will keep her out of Senate meddling and Obama's hair."

Meanwhile, Weekly Standard blogger (and ex-McCain spokesperson) Michael Goldfarb becomes the latest neoconservative to praise Clinton: "On the issues, Clinton's a hawk. Not only did she vote to authorize the war in Iraq, she delivered her vote in style -- her floor speech on October 10, 2002, went so far as to connect Saddam [Hussein] to al Qaeda. [...] Clinton flipped on the war, but as the nomination slipped out of her reach last spring she spoke of the threats this country faces, and of the prescriptions offered by Obama, in language that would warm the hearts of neoconservatives (if we had them). [...] On matters of diplomacy, Clinton's views are not so different from those held by John McCain and most Republicans -- and they are certainly well to the right of Obama. Of course, if Clinton takes the job one expects she'll be loyal to her new boss. Though it would be extremely entertaining, we probably wouldn't see Madame Secretary working to undermine an Obama administration with recalcitrance and rogue diplomacy. But then Colin Powell was a dutiful soldier while inside the Bush administration and that still didn't prevent him from becoming a foil for the administration's opponents. It's not difficult to imagine Clinton performing a similar service for Republicans. She could be held up as the very model of a responsible Democrat, forced against her better judgment to partake in a series of reckless diplomatic escapades pursued by a more ideological president."

AUTO BAILOUT: Bankruptcy Is The Answer

Conservative bloggers are urging GOP lawmakers to oppose the proposed bailout of the Detroit automakers:

• Malkin: "The first step toward GOP redemption is to stop the automakers' bailout and roll back the creeping conversion of the Crap Sandwich 2.0 into an all-purpose bailout bonanza for every last American industry and corporate special interest in financial peril."
• RedState's Robert Bluey: "Few would disagree that the Big Three are in trouble. Last month GM's sales dropped 45%, Chrysler's were down 35% and Ford's fell 30%. But rather than bailing out these companies, lawmakers should shoo them away. There is another option: It's called bankruptcy. And despite what the bailout proponents say, it's really the only viable way for Detroit to remake itself and survive. Feeding the beast won't fix the problem."
• Faughnan: "It's clear that Democrats in Washington don't want to 'save' the automakers. Rather, they want to run a car company and ensure that tens of thousands of UAW members continue to pay their union dues. [...] It's pretty clear that the best way to make America's automakers competitive again is to force them to undergo major restructuring -- probably through bankruptcy."
• Commentary's John Steele Gordon: "What's needed to save the Big Three, as distinct from the industry as a whole, is to destroy the poisonous legacy of the cartel days. And that is best accomplished -- as Jennifer [Rubin] has noted -- in bankruptcy court, not with a bailout."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Who Defines The Center?

NRO's Ramesh Ponnuru:

"Tod Lindberg argues that conservatives are fooling themselves if they think that the U.S. is a 'center-right nation.' Me, I'm not sure what it would mean for the country to be either 'center-right' or 'center-left.' I can see the point of saying that the country is 'center right' if the point is that we are, compared to most developed countries, a bit more religious, free-market, and nationalistic in orientation. If that's all it means to say 'center right,' though, we could probably go through a long period of political domination by liberals and still qualify. And I'm not sure what else the phrase could mean."

LEST WE FORGET: Joe The Plumber Cashes In

Columbia Journalism Review's Megan Garber (h/t digby):

"Joe the Plumber's latest small business? Apparently: himself. JTP's deeply researched, carefully edited, thoughtful, and not at all hastily-put-together-to-capitalize-on-his-media-celebrity-before-it-expires treatise on The American Dream -- written 'with' spiritual novelist Thomas N. Tabback -- is slated to be released December 1. Yes, of this year. Oh, and it will be titled, humbly and rather delightfully, Joe the Plumber: Fighting for the American Dream.

To celebrate -- and to ensure that copies of the book are sold! -- YOU THE PEOPLE can now obtain a Freedom Membership from Joe's hastily-put-together-to-capitalize-on-his-media-celebrity-before-it-expires Web site, SecureOurDream.com. The Membership, like Freedom itself, ain't free...but the $14.95 yearly fee practically pays for itself! With it, you'll get:

1) Total Access to 'Joe The Forum' where you may chat directly with Joe

2) Subscription to the 'Joe The Blog' monthly newsletter

3) Free Shipping on all 'Joe The Plumber' merchandise

4) Free Signed Copy of Joe's forthcoming book 'Joe The Plumber' -- Fighting for the American Dream

5) Become an integral part of an American movement to restore our government to the people"

Posted by Ian Faerstein at November 18, 2008 12:28 PM