Joe Lieberman
Have you all been following this guy’s exploits? Am I the only one who wants to smash his smarmy, grand-standing face into a wall? He’s single handedly killing the healthcare bill and for what?
Comments
Here’s the thing. I’m more pissed about Obama and the Senate leadership. They are the ones who choose to play nice with him and not take away his chairmanships. So that basically he gets to get all the advantages of a democratic majority, while at the same time completely derailing the efforts of that majority.
And I’m no conspiracy theorist but I’m starting to believe that Lieberman is being made a (willing) scapegoat and that this is what Obama and Reid wanted all along. A watered down bill that doesn’t reform and that basically amounts to a health insurance industry bail out.
I wasn’t all that alarmed at first when Obama filled the ranks of his staff and cabinet with the likes of Rahm Emmanuel, Tim Geitner, Lawrence Summers and those guys and completely shut out people like Howard Dean and Paul Krugman. But now, given how the stimulus ended up being more of an industry and wall street bailout, the lack of any follow up reform or regulation, and now the debacle of health care reform that not only doesn’t reform healthcare but winds up providing major windfalls to the crooked insurance industry this was designed to reform…..
I know a lot of apologists are pulling the “Well, he’s not in the senate what can he do…” but the fact is that the president sets the tone. Letting Obama off the hook is basically tantamount to admitting that Bush wasn’t responsible for his 8 years. Maybe true in a vague sense, but the lack of fight and the lack of push is telling. Particularly when he and his staff have issued no strong words against and in fact nothing but praise for the likes of Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, etc. but have literally told their progressive base and people like Howard Dean and Anthony Wiener and other strong reform advocates to shut the fuck up……
All very good points. And while I think you’re leaning a little close to crazy conspiracy bullshit on the “they planned it this way all along!” point, Obama definitely needs to be taken to task for this.
I should clarify I don’t mean they planned it in that every single move was staged in advance. I just mean I don’t think Obama and in particular Emmanuel never really wanted true reform. I think they wanted some lukewarm measures that could pass in the 24 hour sound byte news cycle as “passing healthcare reform” to be able to check off that box, but that they had no desire to ever really put the screws to the current system in any tangible way to either drive down costs, stop corrupt industry practices or anything of the sort. I just think the way it played out conveniently gave them a couple of nice juicy scapegoats to pin the blame for what was their halfhearted support at best, and negligent inaction at worst.
This letter at TPM pretty much sums it up nicely:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/12/no_fight.php#more?ref=fpblg
I’ve always wanted to punch Lieberman. Even if he was just some guy on line in front of me at quick check, his voice and manner of speaking alone demand a fist in response.
Now I wouldn’t have that guilty feeling of assaulting a complete stranger.
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/19522
The one Senator who keeps showing up in the news doing things that make me happy, Al Franken, shuts Lieberman down.
See the thing about that Franken thing is that while I’m sure he enjoyed the opportunity, he was pretty much doing his job. And the better part was how John McCain, in his usual jump in without knowing the facts, started getting all indignant and saying how unprecedented it was, until some other Dem senator pointed out “Uh….yeah the same thing just happened a few hours ago and you said nothing.”
Morons. The whole lot of them.
Moveon actually did a pretty good ad:
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/12/18/moveon_ad/index.html