I can't believe what is happening in the economy. I think 2009 and 2010 are going to be very rough for many Americans.

Yeah, that's right Reid, take away Lieberman's chair on the issues he's actually with you, and let him keep them one where he's diametrically opposed.

It's not just time for Lieberman to go, it's time for Reid to go.

We need new leadership. Perhaps some that can actually, you know, lead.

Man, the only thing more disappointing than Democrats losing is Democrats winning.

Voter turnout in Alaska may not have been suspiciously low after all.

That was a relief to see.

Last I heard, they were going to finish up the count tomorrow, modulo a few stray ballots.

Homeland Security for the Man who knows that McCain is the one who puts Country First and Obama is the one to fear. Lovely. Makes me feel so secure.

The Dem Senate leadership disgusts me - they can't possibly have understood what kind of signal this sends.

Triangulating wusses.

How can we live through the next 64 days? Hopefully with a lot of humor--maybe some comic books? :-)

Maddow's 'Quackitude' segment makes me smile:

"Because someone has to do it"

Voter turnout in Alaska may not have been suspiciously low after all.

It was McClatchey that only a week ago said 305K votes were cast. Now it's 320K. 15K absentee votes that took over 4 days to arrive seems a bit high, doesn't it?

Have I mentioned lately how great Burlington, Vt., is?

Yeah braw! So why you live in frickin' Essex?

Wow, I'm suprised that I'm actually still surpised at how spineless the Democratic leaderships are. I thought I have pretty much exhausted my capacity to be surprised on that front.

So clariy this for me - basically, when the senators vote, they are not even given the option to remove him from the Homeland Security chairmanship? They can only vote to remove him from some stupid subcommittee? Really? Or is the Homeland Security chairmanship thing still on the option, just that Reid is not advocating senators to vote for that option?

FU, Senate Dems.

"Is the Franken camp losing confidence in Minnesota?"

Is the Benen camp losing confidence in Franken?

Insisting that things be done right every step of the way makes sense.

Would be nice, to know exactly what question (ie how it'll be formulated) the Senators will vote on tomorrow. How many option will they be offered?

Would be nice, if it weren't by secret ballot; I'm sure I'm not the only voter who wants to know whether I ought to be sending coals and birch twigs to mine for Christmas...

Is the Franken camp losing confidence in Minnesota?

No, it just looks like they learned the lessons of 2000 very well. The entire process of Bush v. Gore was carried out under and colored by the bogus presumption that Bush was the "winner" based on nothing more than network projections and preliminary counts. There is no such thing as being too meticulous or aggressive in this situation.

Does Lieberman have a picture of Reid in a compromising position with a goat? WTF!

The Democratic party does not deserve its grassroot. Do they really believe that we're all gonna forget this when May 2010 comes around? Do they think we're as stupid as the GOP's 25 percenters?

I think Franken is being very smart.

In the 2004 Governor's race here in Washington, there were approximately 700 absentee ballots that had been filled out correctly in every detail but they were set aside because the state voter registration computer system didn't have a signature on file for them. When that happens, the elections board is supposed to look up the original voter registration form and manually verify the signature, but for whatever reason that didn't happen this time and this batch of ballots were forgotten. After the initial certification, a member of the county council noticed he was listed as not voting and looked into why and the ballots were discovered.

The Rossi campaign went to court and argued that because they hadn't been counted originally, they couldn't be included in the "re-count". They lost at every level in the courts, and ultimately Christine Gregoire's margin of victory was larger than the number of votes she gained in that batch of ballots.

Nevertheless, Rossi's supporters in that election still refer to those "found" ballots, still suggest that there was something suspicious about them and still use them as one of their reasons for claiming the election was tainted.

Of course, these same people frequently refer Gore/Leiberman 2000 and Sore/Loserman and suggest that Democrats always go to court to win elections they can't win at that ballot box, but consistency was never one of the Republican virtues.

Kristol in the NYT today:
There’s nothing conservative about letting free markets degenerate into something close to Karl Marx’s vision of an atomizing, irresponsible and self-devouring capitalism.

I'm really disappointed in this man. I thought that was the whole point.

As for Hon. Sen. Lieberman: Assume that the Dems get 58 or 59 votes in their causus; what will the majority/ minority split be in the committees? I'm thinking that the other Dems on the committee can probably make the chairman's power negligible if they vote as a bloc. So let him him have his chew toy, and buy his vote on all the rest. Thinking that we need to act out of revenge gives the man as much importance as he apparently believes he possesses.

Jo ("the AIPAC Ho") Lieberman wins again! Thanks Senators Boxer and Frankenfeinstein.. Birds of a feather flock together? Change will not come until the democratic house is sanitized. All this time people have been blaming the repubicants when in reality it's also the democratic asshole club that's really in the way of good government. These people don't represent me, why are they there again exactly?

As doubtful said, the only thing worse than Democrats losing is Democrats winning.

Lord I wish we had a viable multiple party system and votes of confidence in the government.

Does anyone know how long Maddow will be away on vacation? Goodness, does she deserve a long one, but damn, she'll be missed!

It's "Spider-Man." Everyone always forgets the hyphen...

Doubtful is right, and I love Reid hiding behind the anonymous "leaders" of the Roll Call story.

There's a good counter to the idea of using Spitzer in any genuine position of authority. It was made at the Anonymous Liberal thread on that subject:

Dilip said...

It is kind of surprising that AL is missing a very obvious point. Spitzer was an attorney general and it was part of his job description to prosecute high profile prostitution rings. If you can blithely get laid with a call girl while pretending to do your job as if nothing happened, it portrays a certain amount of blatant hypocrisy on your part. It is like a saying from my country -- you erect a barbed wire fence to stop curious animals from coming in and grazing your lush green grass field. Imagine what would happen if the fence itself grazes the field? Thats what we are talking about here.

[ 5:53 PM ]

The Lieberman-proof majority ain't what it used to be.

Glenn Beck has "security?" Not that I blame him, the guy has a lot of enemies. If I ever see any of these guys in public, I hope I have a drink in my hand at the time.

If I can bring up a theme from the thread CANTOR ON GOP'S 'RELEVANCE' since it is dying and this is pretty open:

I think the GOPs ideas tended to be awful too, but the problem is: how did they keep getting elected so much? We've talked about diversion with social scare issues, Rovian tactics etc, but is that good enough to explain how a party with "awful ideas" can do so well in elections?

This is exciting, whatever exactly you think of her:
Hillary Clinton reported to accept Obama's offer to be SoS:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/17/hillary-clinton-secretary-of-state

It's a shame Lieberman gets to keep on chairmanship and not the other. I don't like it... however it's time to move on. There's going to be bigger fish to fry for sure. For one, let's make sure the new torture czar John Brennan gets a job in the Obama Administration. That would not be a good sign for "change."

Correction ... above I said "let's make sure Brennan gets a job..." I meant "NOT get a job."

Just so you know.

ctrenta, anyone: Is Hillary a good pick?

I agree with the Franken comments above. Not only that, I was reflecting on the Hannity and Plawenty interview from last week, one that attempts to control the narrative that the Dems were somehow 'shady' in recovering so many votes for Franken. Now Hannity and Plawenty make an interesting point: "Why are the recovered votes largely Franken votes?"
To them, it is a sign of Dem shinannagins. But an equally valid reason, as far as conspiracy narratives go, is that Republican pollsters were deducting Franken votes and their consciences have gotten the better of them.

Franken is correct to fight the perceptions that are being established, and to fight the legitamacy of Coleman's lead.

Lieberman has scrubbed his Senate web site --
http://pbrla.blogspot.com/2008/11/joe-lieberman-whitewash.html

I suppose its possible for Hillary to be asked to be SOS but I still have a hard time accepting given her weaknesses as an administrator and her husband's many deficiencies: ( big mouth, big ego, many pecadilloes and conflicst of interest, and as importantly, the Clintons' driving NEED for ongoing MELODRAMA). This varies considerably from everything that we have seen about Obama.

I have of course, now way of knowing what the real deal here is course. If she is appointed SOS I will in the end, defer to Obama's decision - it is HIS to make after all.

Still I can think of no worse candidate for this office given his personality, stated objectives and her past behvaior and performance. Bill is like having a political death wish -- everything that he gets involved with turns to scandal.

This is the very LAST thing that I want for Obama -the.last.thing. How does he have time for these people with what this country has on its plate. Is he going to appoint a governor for Bill? And oh, the LEAKS, and more LEAKS and "unquoted sources" form this pair...Jeez --- I just want him to think selfishly of what he needs. No how No way is that Hillary.

>Bill is like having a political death wish -- everything that he gets involved with turns to scandal.

Oh, please. You mean the wingnuts will ensure a manufactured pseudoscandal. Whitewater, Travelgate, Arlington Cemetery, the serial perjuror and fraudster Kathleen Willey, even Marc Rich (whatever happened to that investigation that prosecutor was going to launch? Oh right, another dry well): Other than Lewinsky, absolutely everything leveled at Clinton was bogus.

Better class of troll, please.

I am sorry -- I am not a troll.

Bill has real problems with prioritizing his wife's interests versus his own. My reference is to the primaries that so many of his blind advocates tend to forget. He did Hillary no favors and would not be expected to behave differently should she be SOS.

Ad hominem attacks on me don't change that at all. If she is appointed we just get to sit back and regret what could have been avoided. An you, of course, will remain quiet.

Sorry -- you can call me what you will but there is too much at stake and I hope that she gets no where NEAR that appointment.

Eliot Spitzer should not even be mentioned as a possible addition to Obama's team. The fact that the targets of some of his very selective resume building raids on Wall Street kleptocrats just happened to be the type of people liberals love to hate is merely coincidence (see Giuliani, Rudolph). He is the ambituous, corrupt, narcissistic son of an ambitious, corrupt, narcissistic real-estate mogul whose money polluted the political process in NYC. He does not possess any special wisdom or skill that cannot be found elsewhere with far less baggage.

He will be lucky if he is forgotten, although it will kill his ego.

When Glenn Beck complained of the attack did he have a backwards "B" scrawled on his face in bright red lipstick?

Lieberman survives with a "tut, tut" from the mildly offended Democrat members of the club. A mild rebuke offers us a few crumbs from the members' dining table.

And America continues to be unduly influenced by AIPAC and the murderous nutcases in the Likud party.

Oh well, the more things change . . .

Yeah braw! So why you live in frickin' Essex?

Heh, I've been reading Benen for years here and there and until now I never knew he lived in Vermont. Wow.

So why don't we ever see you at Drinking Liberally in Burlington, hmmm? I only went about half the time or so, but I'm pretty sure I would have recognized your name. (Well, I can't say "we" because I don't live in Burlington any more, but I'm sure you'd be welcome there.)

Are you sure Glenn Beck's head didn't just explode at the idea of a Liberal Truck Driver. I mean, Truck Drivers are surely Real Americans, but Lieberals can't ever be Real Americans. Does Not Compute...