Party of one

Following in the footsteps of Joe Lieberman, Dianne Wilkerson! Dianne, you could have held this seat forever with only a minimum of attention. Unfortunately, that was too much to ask.

You do know that if you run this sticker campaign and lose - and that's by far and away the most likely outcome - your political career is over. Incumbency is powerful, no doubt. Your survival this far is testament to that. But you might be better off to get your house in order, make a little money, and try a comeback in two years.

Or not. What do I know?

Is there a downside?

The Democratic Senate isn't actually accomplishing anything with its slim majority. I say throw Lieberman out on his ass and let the Republicans have him. In 2009, with an expanded Democratic majority that can rewrite the filibuster rules, he can be a caucus of one and spend all his time bemoaning the lack of tripartisanship. The hell with him.

Could lose his chair? Could?

If Joe Lieberman still has any leadership role in the Democratic caucus come 2009, I'll probably explode. My preference: Show him the door.

Unless of course he's vote number 60!

Need a briefing, John?

While CNN is off in the VP weeds, pretending it's breaking news that their reporters are staking out Joe Biden and Evan Bayh, there is still real war and real journalism going on in Iraq (h/t Joe Klein).

John McCain claimed he didn't need a briefing on Russia's invasion of Georgia, and he might have been right. After all, one of Georgia's lobbyists runs his campaign, despite his made-for-media, bullshit purge of a few of his lobbyist buddies.

The renewed civil conflict in Iraq, however, is a return to the Sunni-Shi'ite distinction that McCain still needed Joe Lieberman's help with, despite at this point what surely must have been hundreds of briefings.

Don't Duhbya and the Bushists prove once and for all that we need a leader who will listen and learn? McCain would bring four more years of going with the gut. Voters who want more of the same are choosing the longest self-service colonoscopy on record.

Way too late

Sorry, Joe, my love's not for sale. Thanks for the dough, though.

Now, at least we know that Mark Preston will talk to a, uh, non-Republican. Jury's still out on whether he'll talk to a Democrat.

Lieberman's only hope

Harry Reid has to keep smarmy jerk Joe Lieberman in the caucus of Senate Democrats. I don't have a lot of confidence in Reid, I'm sure he'd rather not be biting his tongue. I'm sure he'd rather not be choking down Lieberman's consistent bullshit.

Come 2009, there's only one scenario in which Lieberman caucuses with the Democrats: 59 Democratic Senators. Otherwise, he's out on his Fox-beloved ass. Let him caucus with John McCain and the Republicans.

Dreaming of the day

There will come a day when the Democrats in the Senate can tell Joe Lieberman to bugger off with his whiny voice and his holy scolding for sins that nowadays bear no resemblance to reality. Now that will be a day to play "Happy Days Are Here Again".

Michaelmania!

What could Michael Bloomberg do for Barack Obama?

Obama doesn't need Bloomberg's money. Bloomberg doesn't have a national following, and Obama will win New York on his own.

Obama doesn't have to mend fences with the Jewish community. It wouldn't hurt to shore up that key Democratic constituency, but it's not as if he's really at odds with it.

This could be a feint at McCain's love match Joe Lieberman, I guess.

But I really think it's just PR from Bloomberg planted in the New York media, for what reason I have no idea. Or maybe the media can make up their own absurd story lines without help these days.

Everybody rationalizes, why not Joe Lieberman?

For full Matt Bors cartoon, click the image.

Infuriating Broderism

Scot Lehigh gets back to the naive, sanctimonious bullshit today:

[I]f a new president was genuinely willing to reach out and compromise, some of the reflexive partisanship might start to fade.

Lehigh speaks lovingly of the center without ever acknowledging that the hard-right Republican Party's success at moving the center waaay over to the right came because the Democrats were not partisan enough in the face of Newt Gingrich and Duhbya. Lehigh approvingly quotes Garrison Nelson:

The moderates have basically been disenfranchised by the polarization of contemporary politics. The center wants back in the game - and that is the appeal of both Obama and McCain.

This is not just wrong. It's a lie. The left has been disenfranchised. That's why we "raucous left-wing advocacy groups" have to fucking scream to be heard. We're up against the combined power of the monolithic Republican political operation with its dominating media machine. That's why we view calls for civility as patronizing; pundits like Lehigh are constantly telling us to lie back and think of England.

Now, I'm sure that most of us would love to get back to comity and mutual respect. But, despite their disingenuous claims, the Republicans would not. Polarization and vilification have worked for them.

True constructive bipartisanship will never happen until the Democrats gird up and say, "NO MORE." We've compromised and compromised and compromised for little or nothing.

It takes both sides to achieve a fair bipartisanship, just as it takes both sides to fight. The Republicans have won too much by unilateral warfare on their political opponents to give it back in a make-nice compromise.

So, please, pretty please, stop telling Obama he has to take on his own party, when for seven years and longer, the Republicans in lock-step power have taken no prisoners other than Joe Lieberman and the psychotic Zell Miller among the Democrats.

Sunday comics blogging

Wouldn't John McCain and Joe Lieberman really like to spend more time with their families?

(Click the image to see the full comic.)

January 2009

I once offended a local Democrat by deriding Joe Lieberman, and I haven't seen her at a meeting since. I wonder how she feels about Lieberman's endorsement of John McCain. I feel completely vindicated, much as when I pushed a racist voter away from my Congressional candidate in 1974.

My fervent hope is that the Senate Majority Leader who defeats Harry Reid in January of 2009 will drum Lieberman out of the Democratic Party caucus. Could it be more clear that he's not a Democrat? You have to wonder about Connecticut Democrats who voted for him.

Unthinkable

Duhbya can't think of anything to change except his slogans. So, the Boston Globe tells us:

President Bush will endorse the broad outlines of a plan to bring home 30,000 troops from Iraq by the middle of next year if conditions are favorable, a senior administration official said yesterday.

Is it just me, or is this the same bullshit we've been hearing since the "end" of major combat operations in 2003, four years ago, stripped only of "stay the course"?

The media also can't frame this story any other way. Nancy Pelosi has a juicy quote that gets right to the heart of the dispute. It should have been paragraph 3, but instead it is relegated to the last paragraph. All seven of the quotes or paraphrases on the web front come from Republican - except the one from Joe Lieberman. Now that's balance!

Farah Stockman and Bryan Bender have done good work in the past, so I'm guessing this story's Republican slant comes from the ever credulous Peter Canellos, the Globe's DC bureau chief.

For Duhbya and the media, any other narrative is unthinkable.

Another one bites the dust

Chuck Hagel has had enough. Can't say I blame him.

This is a win-win-win. The very slim thread of Republican sanity is even thinner. The GOP will have to spend more money in Nebraska. And thus the Senate will remain in Democratic hands.

Of course, the price for Democrats may be the return of Bob Kerrey, who sometimes sounds like a member of Connecticut for Lieberman.

And, if only having a Democratic Senate would be worth something.

More on "Justice Denied"

See Better late than never.

The reason I didn’t want Miers was her complete personal fealty to Duhbya. Mr. President, you want the prerogatives of an elected king, whatever you say I’ll agree. This – not Iraq, not for heaven’s sake abortion, not even the galloping plutocracy – is the number one issue of our day. All the others are symptoms of the fundamental dysfunction of our polity, which is slouching into fascism. Are we going to govern ourselves, or are we so tired of the petty details and hard facts that we’re going to hand over the power to corrupt men like Darth Cheney to do with us what they will – so long as we get to watch Survivor?

Did the Times advocate a filibuster of Alito? That’s the real question. As Jimmy Malone said while choking on his own blood in The Untouchables, “What are you prepared to do about it?” The media has a mania for bipartisanship (‘Broderism’), which mainly translates into Democratic restraint and lots of tongue-clucking about the Republicans’ lack of restraint. My mania is for Constitutional democracy, and that’s not a value I’ll compromise in the vain hope of comity with a bunch of would-be tyrants, even in the name of Liebermanesque bipartisanship. Especially not in the name of anyone who enables Republican abuses like Lieberman.

Too bad the Washington Democrats still hope for comity. They should at every turn be fighting political war instead of thinking about responsible governance. The only path to that is to throw the rascals out and install some lesser rascals.

That includes judges. We need to clean house by all legal means – and some extralegal means, too. You think any of the Supremes are on the Palfrey phone list? God, I hope so.

By the way, I think David Vitter is toast. Another Harvard man bites … the dust.

What Harry Reid should say to Joe Lieberman

"Back our candidate or you're fucking out of the caucus."

And then, come 2009, throw him out anyway.

On Roger Ailes.