He's screwed (4.00 / 1)

He can't resolve re-elect numbers like those. He knows this is his last term in the Senate. I wonder how he plans to spend them?

Conduct your own interview of Sarah Palin!

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by: fwiffo @ Fri Nov 14, 2008 at 17:08:58 PM UTC

It's A Business (0.00 / 0)

When you have an enemy in high school you toilet paper their house - in politics as the adage says you keep "your enemies closer."  Politics is a business and there are more important things at hand then getting even with an asshole.  I don't see him getting reelected, and then is the time to throw the book at him.

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by: steve katz @ Fri Nov 14, 2008 at 17:11:25 PM UTC

Don't trust him! He's brilliant! And Satanic! (0.00 / 0)

He will outsmart the leadership! He'll sink the administration! We must smite him now! Why is everybody so stupid?  He can hurt us so badly now, more than ever!

This man is more dangerous than 10,000 Hydrogen bombs with Xemu on the trigger.  

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by: Crab Nebula @ Fri Nov 14, 2008 at 17:17:13 PM UTC

You know, there's a difference to overestimating what he can do (4.00 / 3)

And not really wanting to empower him to do the maximum harm that he can.  If they want to give him a minor committee chair, fine.  But there is no way that they should give him an important, foreign-policy related committee like the one he has.

Do you really want Lieberman to have a veto on any immigration legislation that comes through congress, for example?

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by: Valatan @ Fri Nov 14, 2008 at 17:44:06 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Also, the media (4.00 / 1)

The Establishment Media love Lieberman. If they are putting him on as a Democrat and a Committee Chair, he will be that much more effective to the dreaded Low Information Voter. Cut his nuts off now, and he moves to the bottom of the Rolodex, below Richard Shelby.

You think message discipline doesn't matter? Look at the last three presidential contests.

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by: BlueinColorado @ Fri Nov 14, 2008 at 17:48:45 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I think he no longer hurts (0.00 / 0)

I think he is useful contrast.  He looks like a loon.  I like him playing sanctimonious bad cop hawk who loves Republicans.  Shine the light on him.

Times have changed.  

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by: Crab Nebula @ Fri Nov 14, 2008 at 17:51:09 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I agree but this is a small battle (0.00 / 0)

People are flipping out over this, it's just ridiculous.  There will be more imp

It's about conserving and using capital properly to win key fights.  This is not a key fight.  The knee-jerk emotionalists in the blogosphere are absurdly obsessed with Lieberman....now.   There was a time when it was worth it.  Now, we should forget about him.  Bigger fish to fry.  There is a lot to do.  

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by: Crab Nebula @ Fri Nov 14, 2008 at 17:49:49 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

This is a good sign. (0.00 / 0)

Montani semper liberi

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by: Sadie Baker @ Fri Nov 14, 2008 at 17:23:46 PM UTC

Tools to call your Senators and tell them "No more Joe!" (0.00 / 0)

From Firedoglake:
http://tools.advomatic.com/7/k...

It only takes about 5 minutes and your calls can make a difference.  I hope my two blue senators (Kerry/Kennedy) make the right call.  

If the Dems can just stay tough and strip Joe of his committee chair, but give him something like Small Business then all the pressure is on him -- quit the party and start over or shut up and take it...

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by: elhuevon @ Fri Nov 14, 2008 at 17:24:29 PM UTC

Cute (4.00 / 1)

But I hope they get Lieberman is, as you say, just biding his time until he can get his revenge (for what? I'm sure Lieberman thinks the defeat of John McCain was intended as a personal slight). Throw him over the fucking side of the boat. Now. Create a new committee. The Committee on Presidential Memorials. The Committee on Weights and Measures. The Committee on Unctuous, Oleaginous, Self-Serving, Smarmy Scumbuckets. Trade him that Chairmanship for the one he has. Then let him go piss into the wind if he wants to.

Do it now, 'cause I'd be willing to bet a kidney that my one UOSSSS Senator Ken Salazar thinks the path to media attention and eternal Beltway Glory is lined with Liebermanism. Evan Bayh, Mark Pryor... Cut these fuckwads off now.  

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by: BlueinColorado @ Fri Nov 14, 2008 at 17:44:47 PM UTC

Dead Man Walking (4.00 / 1)

Lieberman is toast. He is not going to win reelection. UNLESS the Democrats put him in a position to do so. The smartest thing Democrats can do at this point is neutralize him so he does the minimum possible damage over the remainder of his final term.

The question is, what does that entail?

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by: Hoooey @ Fri Nov 14, 2008 at 18:27:02 PM UTC

Why does he have to get a committee? (4.00 / 1)

I don't get why Matt and others keep taking for granted that he has to have a committee if he gets kicked off his current one. There are Democratic senators who don't head committees. Lieberman isn't even a Democrat. Why give him anything at all? It's not like he represents an important constituency anymore -- his 35% deadenders are almost certainly Republicans. So we have a non-Democrat senator who campaigned for the Republicans and will not be reelected. So why would anybody even think of giving him anything?

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by: DaveW @ Fri Nov 14, 2008 at 18:35:56 PM UTC

Now's the time (4.00 / 1)

Getting rid of the canting Lieberman now will prove far easier than in the doomsday scenario Bayh talks about.

Imagine a crisis between Iran and Israel where Lieberman takes a neocon position contrary to Obama, and the sanctimonious snake threatens to subpoena administration officials.  Strip Lieberman of his committee then, and he paints himself as some latter day Archibald Cox, a martyr sacrificed on the altar of a corrupt administration.  The MSM would eat that shit up, and it could destroy an Obama administration.

Scenarios like this are too obvious and not at all farfetched, so I have to think that Obama and his allies are playing it cool publicly, trying to appear as evenhanded as possible before serving the inevitable comeuppance.  

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by: wobbly @ Fri Nov 14, 2008 at 19:06:09 PM UTC

Meanwhile... (0.00 / 0)

Obama invites Clinton and McCain to the White House...and says he'll name a Republican to his administration.  Who's doing all the sucking?  

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by: damitajo1 @ Fri Nov 14, 2008 at 20:15:44 PM UTC