8/24: Guess Who's Bizzack?

Lately it seemed as though Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) had relinquished his title as the netroots' least favorite member of the Senate Dem caucus. Although he had spent years angering the left with his hawkish rhetoric (not to mention his outspoken advocacy of John McCain's WH bid), Lieberman had been relatively quiet as of late. Consequently, liberal bloggers have been directing most of their fire at the centrist Dems whom they perceive as obstructing Pres. Obama's health reform agenda, such as Max Baucus (D-MT) and Kent Conrad (D-ND).

Yesterday, however, Lieberman jumped back into the netroots' crosshairs when he urged the Obama admin. to postpone large-scale health care reform "until the economy's out of recession," adding that "there's no reason we have to do it all now." Lefty bloggers are furious about Lieberman's comments, since they believe that further delaying health care reform legislation will only make it less likely to pass. Markos Moulitsas declares: "The 2012 Connecticut Senate race can't begin soon enough."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Allahpundit, Hinderaker, McCarthy, Hewitt, Riehl) are criticizing the Obama admin. for increasing its 10-year budget deficit projection from $7T to $9T.
• In '10 SEN news, liberal bloggers (Dayen, desmoinesdem) are buzzing about rumors that Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) will challenge Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). Other liberal bloggers (Singiser, Senate Guru) are excited that the LA Dem Party has filed an ethics complaint against Sen. David Vitter (R). Meanwhile, conservative bloggers (Morrissey, Malkin, Antle) are pleased that a new Mason-Dixon poll found that Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is vulnerable.
• In '10 House news, liberal bloggers (Moulitsas, Hamsher) are excited about a new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll which indicates that Blue Dog Dem Jim Cooper (D-TN) is vulnerable.
• Liberal bloggers (Hamsher, Waldman, Gittelson) are criticizing Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) for refusing to say whether she would vote against a conference committee health care bill that does not include a strong public option.

LIEBERMAN: Just When We Were Starting To Forget About Him...

Liberal bloggers are blasting Lieberman for urging Obama to postpone health care reform "until the economy's out of recession":

• Daily Kos' Moulitsas: "The 2012 Connecticut Senate race can't begin soon enough."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "The conventional wisdom is that Sen. Joe Lieberman (I) of Connecticut is willing to stand with the Democratic caucus on everything except national security issues. He continues to prove, however, that this isn't true at all."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "Unlike the case with some of his colleagues, you can't chalk Senator Joe Lieberman's apparent opposition to universal health care up to political cowardice. Connecticut is a solidly Democratic state at this point, and it's pretty clear that the main political threat Lieberman faces is from his left. Nevertheless, he's a man with the courage of his convictions and his convictions just don't seem to be especially progressive."
• Firedoglake's Attaturk: "Joe Lieberman's love of spending hundreds of billions on freedom through explosions knows no bounds. There are no limits to how much Lieberman would ask the American tax-payer over generations to pay for his beloved wars. If Obama, for some reason, called Joe up some evening and asked him to vote for $100 billion so as to bomb Tehran he'd have the supportive Op-Ed in Fred Hiatt's hands by the next morning. But when it comes to providing policies that actually benefit Americans, in America of all places, like health care; no matter how small the relative price, it is too much for Senator 'He's with us on everything except the War' (thanks Harry Reid)."
• The Washington Post's Ezra Klein: "Joe Lieberman's heterodoxies were, for a time, quite contained. He might have been a [William] Kristol-ite neoconservative on foreign policy, but he remained a Connecticut liberal on domestic and social policy. That was before Ned Lamont's challenge, and before Lieberman was abandoned by many of his Democratic colleagues, and before he was ousted in the primary and began finding his best friends were conservative talk show hosts. The result has been a slow transition away from liberalism on all issues, not just foreign policy. The latest step in this process is Lieberman's Sunday call to wait on health-care reform."

Klein goes on to criticize Lieberman's argument: "Putting [health-care reform] off is likely to mean the same thing as not doing it, as anyone with a passing familiarity of past decisions to 'put off' health-care reform will tell you. But I'm more interested in this idea that we shouldn't make large social investments until we're out of recession. First, we probably are out of recession. Second, health-care reform is scheduled to begin in 2013, by which time we will almost certainly be out of recession, and if we're not, we have bigger problems. Lieberman might be uncommonly pessimistic about our prospects for growth, but that would imply support for health-care reform, as it will pump a trillion dollars into the economy and thus stimulate demand. Third, the costs of reform largely manifest in the later years of the decade, namely 2015-2019, by which point we may or may not be in recession, but if we are, it will probably be a different recession than the one we're in now. There is, in other words, no connection between whether GDP growth is slightly negative in the third quarter of 2009 and whether we should spend money between 2013 and 2019 building a universal health-care system. When people say we shouldn't do health-care reform because of the recession, they're saying something about their preferred approach to health-care reform, not to recessions."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Disillusionment On The Left

digby:

"I would guess that the [Obama] administration thinks that liberals will forget all about this public option business in four years and have nowhere to go anyway, so there's no need to worry about them. And they might even be right except, as I've noted before, the list of 'hedges,' 'compromises' and 'betrayals' is getting quite long. And it's only in the first year, the time when the president has the most political capital and doesn't have to obsess over what every ignorant swing voter thinks about everything.

And there are some big fights to come --- one big one especially, called 'war funding' that could make health care look like a kindergarten cat fight. And I have absolutely zero reason at this point to think that one's going to come out any better than health care.

I don't think Obama can count on all of his base sticking with him through thick and thin. Watching a Democratic president and a large Democratic majority unwilling to pass decent legislation in the face of the dysfunctional, impotent clownshow that currently calls itself the Republican Party is about the most depressing thing I've seen in all my years observing politics. I can't even imagine how I would feel if I were 20 years younger and a lot less cynical."

LEST WE FORGET: Chubby Jewish Boy Dreams Of One Day Being Next Apatow Muse

From The Onion:

"EVANSTON, IL -- Sources close to Arthur Meyer reported that the overweight Jewish teen hopes to someday inspire film producer Judd Apatow to create a series of comedic vehicles for him to star in. According to friends and family members, the 14-year-old is working to develop the persona of a foul-mouthed, emotionally stunted young man who seems hopelessly crude and self-indulgent but is ultimately lovable and capable of redemption. 'I've been practicing having "guy moments" with my pals where we call each other gay, but not like in a bad way,' said Meyer. 'I just want to be a movie star who plays an everyday guy who spends all his time looking at or discussing pornography, and then somehow winds up dating hot chicks.' At press time, Apatow had already produced six films slated for a 2010 release with Meyer in the lead role."