Just because the Republican brand has lost some its luster doesn't mean that the Democratic Party now has the leverage to excommunicate its centrists.

He seems to miss the fact that Lieberman is no longer a Democrat, having left the party to run as an independent.

Democrats support Democrats.

It's that simple. Someone who ran against the Democratic nominee for the Senate and then endorsed the Republican candidate for the presidency is not a Democrat and has no claim on the Democrats in the Senate. If he wants to be a backbencher in the caucus, fine, the Democrats would likely be foolish to kick him out, but he has given up his leadership position by refusing to back Democrats. Enough.

And Lieberman isn't facing disciplinary action because he is a self serving egotist. That goes with the job.

If he had simply campaigned for his good friend John McCain, I might be more inclined to forgive and forget. But he campaigned for Palin and other Republicans. He did not provide oversight of the Bush administration when it was critically needed. He failed at his job. If the Obama administration is about competence in government, that alone should mandate the loss of his gavel.

Why would anyone think that he won't be spiteful and embittered even if he remains in the caucus with his gavel? Won't the process of calling his decisions into question do that?

I am not sure why TNR exists. Does anyone read it other than blog posts?

Jen's point is excellent: Lieberman deserves to be removed from his chairmanship because he was a failure in that role over the past two years. He should be fired for incompetence. That's not a very common thing to do in the Senate, but it, by itself is sufficient.

Still, if the Democrats in the Senate do allow Lieberman to maintain any leadership positions, the Republicans will be celebrating and telling anyone who listens that the Democrats are wusses, that they'll be able to say 'boo' and stop the Dems from doing anything, even if they only have 40 seats.

Democrats really, really need to remember what "we won" means. Harry Reid doesn't have to become a radical, but he leads a strong majority that got a lot of votes in this election. Change was promised. Taking Lieberman off the Homeland Security committee will be the first of many ways to deliver change.

That Think Progress report on Lieberman is crap.

Since when is "campaigning against progressive candidates" illiberal domestic POLICY?

I could put the same report together on Joe Biden, and he's the progressive VP darling now. Take both senators and look at the bankruptcy bill: Which one voted the right way?

When Lieberman endorsed McCain, not only was he endorsing a warmongering worldview, but all the Republican tenets. To call Lieberman a centrist, or even a right winger, suggests that there are consistent principles involved. I'm not so sure you can find that consistency except in love of himself and Israel.

Why would you read Kirchick with an open mind? Has he ever written anything, anything at all, that wasn't shot through with this kind of bad faith and intellectual dishonesty? Has he, on any occasion, demonstrated that he has an even cursory knowledge of the topic he has chosen to discuss? If he has, I missed it. Please, just ignore him. If you feel the need to punish yourself by parsing trough some imbecile's argument, even the execrable Jonah Goldberg would be a better choice. At least he doesn't pretend to be helping liberals with his nonsense.

I have chosen not to be a member of the Democratic Party. If I was to join the Democrats, I would feel obligated to support any Democrat, no matter how much of a Republican-ass-kissing idiot they are. By staying outside the party, I am free to support candidates I agree with and free to oppose candidates who I disagree with or who have done a poor job.

Of course I cannot enjoy the benefits of being a member of the Democratic Party, such a voting in my state's primary. It's a trade-off and I accept that. So should Lieberman.

But he campaigned for Palin - jen f

A little OT, but is anyone else surprised Republicans haven't blamed Lieberman for her lack of understanding? Wasn't he in charge of teaching her about foreign policy?

Some of us had enough sense to let our subscriptions to TNR lapse.

What I find rather interesting about all of this discussion is that the D's are presumed not to have a mandate, unless they attain a 60 vote majority, which "everyone agrees" would be an incredibly dangerous thing -- no doubt, gay marriages for everyone, forced collectivism, and trains that run on time.

kirchick's thesis follows the standard methodology tnr has had for years and years.

jeebus, they come up with the most inane bs that doesnt even begin to approach an issue from any common sense perspective of causality. every single time i usta read the damn rag, i'd get about 1,000 words into some tnr treatise and realize it's just gibberish with respect to "the facts on the ground."

hmmm, i just found my self a clue...

Lieberman campaigned against his fellow Democratic Senators. He agreed with Glenn Beck that America "might not survive" if Dems took 60 Senate seats. http://thinkprogress.org/2008/11/04/lieberman-caucus-dems/

So explain why Democratic senators should vote for a guy who campaigned against them, who said that if they were able to override a filibuster America "might not survive."

Since when is "campaigning against progressive candidates" illiberal domestic POLICY?

I am not sure what this question is supposed to mean. Campaigning against progressive candidates is pretty much the definition of illiberal domestic policy. There are certainly other ways to define it but its difficult for me to imagine how one would argue that it isn't one pretty clear definition.

I could put the same report together on Joe Biden, and he's the progressive VP darling now.

To my knowledge, Joe Biden has never campaigned against other Dem candidates. If he has, then he also deserved to be punished for it. I would be interested in seeing this report of yours.

Take both senators and look at the bankruptcy bill: Which one voted the right way?

You, like Kirchick, seem to be entirely missing the context of this debate. Lieberman isn't being called to task over policy disagreements. He is being called to task because he quite deliberately and publicly attempted to undermine the entire Democratic/progressive agenda by getting a Republican President elected while simultaneously smearing the competence and patriotism of the Democratic candidate. If you have an argument as to why this sort of action should not result in any negative consequences for Lieberman, you should make it. So far neither you nor Kirchick have even made the attempt.

Link to the Maddow piece. Let him answer that.

Our political system is still suffering from that unreality virus that Ron Suskind first wrote about several years ago. Once infected, people completely ignore undeniable facts. Interestingly enough, the majority of those falling victim--although not all, obviously--seem to be Republicans. They'd better come up with a vaccine soon.

I tell ya, there is a very powerful er.... shall we say, 'interest' at work here behind the scenes.

No other rational explanation.

Aside from Hon. Sen. Lieberman's failing to use the governmental oversight committee to oversee government in general, isn't it the case that the DHS was his big idea in the first place? Since it seems generally agreed that the Department, as well as its conception, was an all around cock-up, one would imagine that he would take a passing interest in addressing the problems there, one would be mistaken. It seems he wants the gavel strictly for ego massaging purposes (he was the Dem VP nominee, after all [imagine that he might now be the President-elect!]).

Again, people seem to have forgotten this already, but in 2004 Joe Lieberman ran for PRESIDENT. He didn't just want to be the only two-time VP pick to have run in both parties, he wanted the job himself.

During Joe's 2004 run, he was TNR's baby. And I mean that in the literal sense: TNR acted like Mama Lieberman, whining and kvetching about every little Joe thing, to the point of absolute nauseum. And central to their asserstions about Joe's competence was the ad-nauseum refrain that Joe Lieberman is a centrist/moderate.

What TNR never actually understood -- or perhaps never wanted to talk about -- was that Lieberman's centrism/moderation was as pathologically ideological as the views on the far-right or far-left. In effect, Lieberman was a centrist/moderate not because he held moderate and pragmatic views on issues of governance, but because when you took all his ideological views in sum and divided them by 2 (for the two parties), you couldn't neatly put him in one party or the other. He was a pro-war neocon and a social liberal at the same time -- which does indeed make him an odd bird, but not necessarily a man of moderation.

Joe Lieberman is an ideologue, and that's the main reason he should be booted from his chairmanship when the Dems are in control. He failed to use his chairmanship to help MODERATE the insanity of the Bush administration, and he did so for ideological reasons antithetical to the very spirit of the Democratic party.

As for this:

Its 2006 congressional takeover, engineered by incoming Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, wouldn't have happened if the party didn't run centrist and conservative Democrats in traditionally red states.

The second clause is correct, but leave it to the homers at TNR to skew the reality of the first clause in their direction. In 2006 the two people most responsible for the Democratic takeover of Congress were Howard Dean and John Kerry. Dean laid out the 50-state strategy and followed through on it -- while being opposed for former Clintons like Carville and Emanuel. Kerry campaigned for other candidates extensively and used his three-millon-strong email list to raise and target funds to new and established candidates -- in a precursor to Obama's 2.0 version of the same tactics this year -- swinging several key races and helping a number of veterans get elected.

Lieberman's supporters all know why he is facing scrutiny, but arguing over his conduct during the campaign is a losing proposition. If he had been a Republican doing the same thing to the Republican candidate, there would be a lynch mob outside his office right now. No one would be on his side given an unbiased discussion of his actual statements and actions. So instead of arguing reality, they set up straw-men that they can argue against.

No surprise here. The AIPAC magazine supports the AIPAC senator. TNR is a neocon publication pretending to be liberal. It would be hard to continue the charade if its senator caucuses with the Republicans.

I'm sure the New Republic could find good sane reasons for someone acting as a Kapo during the holocaust. These guys prove every day that it is entirely possible for a Jew to be a Nazi (given that their "gods" in the Likud were willing to work with the Nazis in the 30s and founded themselves as fascists who thought Mussolini was doing a good thing, this isn't as surprising as it might sound at first).

I don't think that it's the case that he doesn't understand the case against Lieberman. He is simply making the case for Lieberman as any good defense lawyer might.

Lieberman opposed the Democratic candidate, campaigned vigorously for the Republican nominee, and repeated slurs against Obama.How much more would anyone have to do to justify expulsion or similar punishment?

The Bush administration rarely held anyone accountable. Let's not be the same. Hold this man accountable for his actions.

homer www.altara.blogspot.com

According to the PoliSci text I used (so long ago that dinosaurs roamed the campus) the entire purpose for political parties is winning elections and staffing offices. They are not ideological. (The recent Repub party is therefore quite a historic anomoly--devoted to 'conservative principles'.)

How does Mr Leiberman look thru that lens? He ran against and defeated a Democrat in 06. He campaigned for a Repub in 08.

Pretty open and shut. Forget whether he's a 'true' liberal; doesn't matter. He isn't a Democrat unless he helps elect Democrats.

I called Reid's office yesterday and the woman who answered seemed clearly not interested and/or was sick and tired of hearing from anti-Liebermanites. My point about Joey is that you really need to cut him off at his knees or you get another 4 years of Joey teevee hogging. Why Bayh/Klobuchar/Dodd/Reid/Feinstein don't get this is beyond me. This is not about keeping their good buddy Joey happy. Joey will have that sword of Damocles hanging on Obama's head for all four years because he'll have subpoena powers. Right now you have so many stories going on and so many stories to come you get rid of Joey now and it's a 2-3 day story and you are done. That's the end of the Joe Saga. You kick him out of the caucus and that's even better because every time he whines to the press he'll just come across as a whiny titty ass baby not as a principled pol. One last thing, I was listening to an interview with Drew Weston(sp) who said that Dems try to win on issues instead of emotions and they should try to win on emotions. He gave the example of Obama/Biden not hitting back emotionally on the Cindy McCain "you don't love this country as much as I do" crap. The Lieberman issue is a classic example of what Dems should be doing. If somebody accuses you of loyalty to the country as Lieberman has essentially done, he needs to lose his chairmanship. They are impeaching your honor and you have to hit them back on it otherwise you look weak. It sounds sophomoric but it's true. You don't let somebody call your mother a traitor and let them get away with it.

He is simply making the case for Lieberman as any good defense lawyer might.

I am no lawyer so I won't pretend to know how defense lawyers normally operate but by in any context of argument I have ever seen, its pretty unpersuasive to completely ignore the case being made against you to focus exclusively on strawmen as Kirchick does here. Lieberman, and Kirchick on his behalf, are not even providing a single defense against the charges being leveled against him. He is, in other words, not even pretending to plead "not guilty." They both accept his guilt and are merely arguing that, for reasons they never really elucidate, Lieberman shouldn't be punished for it. Again I am no lawyer but this doesn't sound to me like it would work very well in a court of law.

Moreover, the standard here is not the criminal threshold of reasonable doubt. Lieberman's situation is really more analogous to a civil trial and as far as I can tell, the only real question is how much he needs to "pay" in damages. In that context, I would think the strongest case that could be made would be to actually downplay the damage caused not pretend it didn't happen.

Although many politicians and lawyers (often the same thing) view words as game pieces, it isn't so. Words have consequences. People internalize the horrible things they hear, and they believe every word issued by Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. They build their life view accordingly, and they hate accordingly.

Which is why Senator Joe Lieberman must not be allowed the chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee. We have had enough of "leadership" that tosses loaded phrases out like Mardi Gras candy, without regard as to who is getting trampled as people fight for the loot.

Sen. Bayh says we can't afford an embittered Lieberman, because he might then vote contrary to all his professed, heart-felt beliefs in a Democratic domestic policy. This, in my opinion, is one more reason to take that gavel away. If he can toss aside everything he believes in because Senators held him accountable for fanning the flames of intolerance for Democratic candidates for President and Senate, then he is not the man we need in a position requiring judgment and intellect.

Lieberman is an Independent.

Let him have a chairmanship when the Independent party has the majority in the Senate.

Or, in the interest of fairness, let him provide a comprehensive curriculum vitae that sets forth the myriad of reasons why he should retain the gavel, illustrating in great detail the in-depth investigations and oversight activities he has conducted.

And if he can't do that, tell him to go pound sand.

Brent wrote:

Why would you read Kirchick with an open mind? Has he ever written anything, anything at all, that wasn't shot through with this kind of bad faith and intellectual dishonesty? Has he, on any occasion, demonstrated that he has an even cursory knowledge of the topic he has chosen to discuss? If he has, I missed it. Please, just ignore him. If you feel the need to punish yourself by parsing trough some imbecile's argument, even the execrable Jonah Goldberg would be a better choice. At least he doesn't pretend to be helping liberals with his nonsense.

a: given to study, reflection, and speculation
b: engaged in activity requiring the creative use of the intellect

For example, study and reflection are completely lacking in their writings. Consider this mindless screed by Kirchick, for example (http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/10/21/2008-10-21_who_are_leftwing_haters_to_point_fingers-2.html), in which he attempts to claim that we mean ol' nasty lefty bloggers have been the real merchants of sleeze in the campaign, not poor, innocent little McCain and Palin (and a number of their supporters). I responded to this idiocy here: (http://signsanssignified.blogspot.com/2008/10/its-river-in-egypt.html), but I'd like to expand on my comments a little. Notice the leap in, um, logic from criticism of neocons to antisemitism. The obvious implication is that to criticize the arguments and/or behaviors of anyone who happens to be Jewish is tantamount to condemning all Jews as Jews, resurrecting the ancient blood libel, the smears of Martin Luther (at the end of his life) and of Hitler, the odious Protocols of the Elders of Zion, etc. (For the record, I'm ethnically and culturally Jewish, although non-observant.) I believe such an argument is termed in informal logic a hasty generalization, although even that doesn't begin to capture the superficiality and hysteria of Kirchick's implied chain of associations. Kirchick's response also implies that criticism of neocons is ipso facto inconceivable, although he doesn't say why. I guess that goes to the second part of the definition. Kirchick simply has no imagination.

Given the utter shoddiness of Kirchick's and Goldberg's work, why on earth are we paying attention to them? They aren't worth the time of day.

There are two issues confronting the Liebermane question:

1) Is he a Democrat? The response is debatable since he endorsed a Republican for president; smeared the Democratic candidate; spoke at the Republican convention and is considering bolting the caucus if he doesn't get his way and arguably isn't from a technical standpoint since he won his recent reelection as a non-democrat. Under a reasonable definition he is not; only under the very widest "big-tent" definition of the Democratic Party is he a Democrat.

2) Does he deserve the Chairmanship of a major committee? Emphatically no. Chairmanship is a reward not a birthright. Almost any Democratic senator could make a more compelling case for the Chairmanship than Lieberman. Worse of all though is the very real threat that Joe Lieberman leaves the party after being named Chairman; in that very real scenario Liberman can only be removed by a Senate resolution. This would be an up or down vote that could be filibustered. In other words he wold still be a prima donna just like he is now.

My solution: let him apologize and let him demonstrate that he is a reliable Democrat; if over the next two years he proves his bona fides he will resume as Chairman.

It is a joke that the Democratic caucus is treating him with kid gloves. He will almost certainly reward them with a knife in the back.

"arguably isn't from a technical standpoint"? HE LOST THE PRIMARY. really, what is obscure about this? Democrats are people who win Democratic primaries and then win general elections running as a Democrat on the Democratic ticket. Joe Lieberman is not a Democrat. He is a Liebermaniac.

It's James Kirchick, Steve! Why are you even surprised? At this point, no one needs to keep an open mind or give this person the benefit of the doubt. He just makes things up,

And oh, he got the fact wrong when he said:

"Pointedly, not a single Democratic senator has publicly called for stripping Lieberman of his committee chairmanship or expelling him from their caucus. (On the contrary, some are rallying to his defense.) The people most interested in penalizing Lieberman are a small but noisy group of liberal bloggers and activists, the same people who were plumping over two years ago to eject him from the Democratic Party for his supposed heresies."

Senators Leahy and Sanders have called for stripping Lieberman of the chairmanship, but I guess that would have intefered with the real point that Jamie Kirchick was trying to make, which is - "OMG, radical leftist bloggers stop being mean to Liebeman!"

It seems to me that most of the debate misses at least one central point. Joe Lieberman speaks sincerely, from the heart. That is one of several reasons he should not hold a position of responsibility.

I'm not sure I even begin to understand this whole Lieberman thing.

It's so clear he crossed the line in a big way. And it's also clear he has shown NO remorse, no regret--indeed, he tried to twist his story around in the final days of the campaign, insisting he always speaks highly of Obama to friends...

If this is what loyalty is like, you can keep it. Feels like the Mofia or something of that magnitude: "Hey, he's in the family, and no matter what, we look after the family".

Yet even this doesn't hold when you put it to the light.

No matter how you slice it, he done the Dems bad. Damn bad. In not just a fleeting but rather substantive and calculated fashion.

This to me is not about loyalty, or about holding grudges.

This is not as Maddow pointed out, about vindictiveness.

It's about being real. It's about owning up to our choices and our values.

At the very least, he owes a HUGE apology and has lots of 'splaining to do...

In the absence of that, are we supposed to pretend somehow he will magically change?

Hasn't he proven himself to be unbelievably untrustworthy, to be lacking of a moral compass?

The larger issue is if we condone his behavior--if we ask NO-thing of him--well, then-- what does it say about all of us?

It's utterly demoralizing.

It's TNR. Next question?

It's curious to me why so much attention is paid to the dishonest liberal hawks at TNR. This site links to them a couple times a day. I can only assume the author is simpatico with the socially-liberal/mideast-hawkery/smug-gasbaggery on display at TNR. And frankly, this orientation is altogether too prevalent at all of our major media outlets.

Consider the massive influence of neo-cons among more traditional conservatives (and paleos)... Then consider how similar these liberal hawks are to neo-cons...

Until this liberal hawk orientation is marginalized and shamed, in politics and in our media, our hopes of something different from a Democratic administration will not materialize.

Do we want more of the same?

Gregggggggggg Easterbrook does not know what to think of this -- Liebermann is a tool of AIPAC, but he's also a kick in the teeth to non-WASP Democrats -- so he'll just [redacted] furiously to pictures of NFL cheer-babes.

Brent,

You're right, this strategy didn't work when it was followed in a high-profile trial: the Mike Tyson rape trial.

Alan Dershowitz conceded that Tyson had forced a contestant at the Miss Black America beauty pageant to have sex with him, but argued that it wasn't "really" rape because Tyson was so notorious that the contestant had to know what she was getting into when she went to his hotel room. Therefore, he didn't deserve to be punished.

Unsurprisingly, that argument didn't work for Tyson, in part because Deval Patrick (!) pointed out just how ridiculous it was.

Lieberman, and Kirchick on his behalf, are not even providing a single defense against the charges being leveled against him. He is, in other words, not even pretending to plead "not guilty. They ... are merely arguing that ... Lieberman shouldn't be punished for it. Again I am no lawyer but this doesn't sound to me like it would work very well in a court of law."
Posted by: brent on November 15, 2008 at 11:35 AM

Let's put this to a secret ballot among the rank & file Democrats who contributed to and volunteered for the candidates Lieberman slandered--ok?