Saturday, January 13th, 2007...6:18 pm
Southern Lousiana Congressman Delivers Fouetté to Lieberman
I got some grief from one of my readers after a shot I took at Joe Lieberman. The poster complained that I and other posters were not recognizing the breadth of the Democratic coalition, and seemed to imply that anarchists like me were about to take the whole party down.
Well, this was silly for a couple of reasons: for one thing, it wasn’t that long ago that I was being eviscerated on here for supporting the supposedly more conservative candidate our local congressional primary. The other reason is that I have made it clear on a couple of occasions that my troubles with Lieberman are more stylistic than policy based (although his continuing support of the war when even Sam Brownback wants to throw in the towel is mystifying, at best), and I have worked to get many moderate and conservative Democrats elected and written positive things about them here.
As I said, my problems with Lieberman have more to do with his style and methods. He seems so anxious now to show himself as a “bipartisan maverick” that he has subsummed issues that once made him at least tolerable to Democrats of all stripes.
For example: many Democrats were anxious to have congressional hearings into the administration’s and FEMA’s handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Lieberman, as chairman of the Homeland Security committee, would call and head up those hearings. No dice, said the senator to Newsweek.
There are so many good reasons for a Democrat, or anyone else for that matter, to give a darn about what happened and look into the failures of the federal government after Katrina. But no, our man is more concerned about his friendship with the President. By the way, he did promise to hold hearings and subpoena documents before the election.
Now, it would be easy to condemn what I’m saying as some carping lefty who is complaining again about the poor, put upon Joe Lieberman. Another person taking issue with the lack of the hearings is Charlie Melancon, who is quoted on Talking Points Memo being diplomatic but displeased with Lieberman’s decision. Wanna know how much of a McGovernik Melancon is? Melancon is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition. I did a check of Thomas and the first bill of his that came up was a sense of congress resolution advocating the public display of the Ten Commandments.
Talking Points Memo has been contacting Gulf Coast Democrats, who are largely Blue Dogs, for their reactions. I imagine that we’ll find that these relatively conservative members are unhappy with Lieberman as well.
3 Comments
January 14th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Tedski: when he’s wrong, he’s wrong….and Leiberman’s position on Iraq is dead wrong - and the dead are young people whose loyalty and energy could be put to far more productive uses.
I just saw him on “Meet The Press” standing with Jon Kyl in defense of Bush’s position. It made my stomach churn.
I’m willing to forgive Lieberman for a lot of his failings, but it’s essential that we change things in Iraq - and Lieberman must be shown that his head is in the right position to examine his own prostate.
January 14th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
I wish I could be eloquent but I can’t. Leiberman is a jackass.
January 14th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
I’ve never been able to forgive Leiberman for running for Senate while he was running for Veep. Like he didn’t really think he’d be busy. Besides, his head is freakishly large.
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