I really do need to stop letting myself get all excited and think the Democrats are capable of actually doing things differently. Every time that happens, I end up monumentally depressed after they prove that they’re just going to fold like origami.
The soup du jour is the 42-13 vote to allow Lieberman to stay in the caucus as well as keep his chair on the Homeland Security Committee. Let me clarify something rather important: I do not care whether or not he caucuses with the Democrats. That’s Joe’s decision. What chuffs me is that he keeps his chair on the HSC. A second point: this is not about “punishment”, this is about the fact that we simply cannot trust Joe to do what’s best for the party or for the country. Just what’s best for Joe.
Then we have this BS:
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he was very angry by Lieberman’s actions but that “we’re looking forward, we’re not looking back.”
Added Reid: “This was not a time for retribution, it was a time for moving forward on the problems of this country.”
…
“There are some (statements) that I made that I wish I had not,” Lieberman told reporters. “In the heat of campaigns, that happens to all of us, but I regret that. And now it’s time to move on.”
Why is it that whenever people in politics talk about “moving forward”, it means completely forgetting everything that happened yesterday? I don’t get to “move forward” when I seriously aggrieve my friends. If I were to crash my car while driving drunk, I couldn’t tell the judge I just want to “move on” and that “this is no time to look backward, I have to take care of my family.” Every time the Democrats talk about looking ahead and not looking behind, it means someone’s getting off scot free.
Expect now also to hear that the “influence” of the “liberal bloggers” has waned, or cheering that Democrats aren’t “beholden” to the “radical left”. It’s pure hogwash. This is proof that Democrats simply have no spine. When push comes to shove, they’re afraid at seeming too “liberal”. Whereas Republicans are now blaming McCain for not being far-right enough, Democrats are pushing away from the left, and the both of them are completely wrong in their assessments.
The reason people like Bill O’Reilly claim the United States is a center-right nation is because our politicians push that way. Our Democrats are terrified of being placed next to liberals like Markos and Michael Moore, but far-right screechers like Bill Kristol, Hannity, or Ann Coulter are downright exalted by Republicans who are happy to legitimize them and their radical ideologies. The very name “George Soros” is enough to have Democrats sputtering that they have no involvement with him, but do any Republicans care about being pictured with Rupert Murdoch or Richard Mellon Scaife? Not at all.
That’s the problem. Democrats won’t stand up to the conservatives. They’re more than happy to feed into the lie that us liberal bloggers are wackadoodles that are far outside the mainstream, at least unless there’s an election nearby. Then suddenly they loooove the John Aravosises and Atrioses of the world. But then when the smoke clears, they go back to scraping right under the false assumption that doing so will be the politically safe thing to do, regardless of what’s right.
Lieberman stays, will undoubtedly launch investigations on Obama, and the Democrats are calling it a victory. Hanlon is depressed, folks
u said everything i feel & more, but since Obama himself encouraged keeping Lieberman in the fold, could other, subtler ways to neuter Joe, without giving him excuse to bolt to the GOP, already be under consideration?
i don’t know a thing about how Washington works, but any committee that’s called the Homeland Security Committee must have been created during Bush years, no? So what’s the chance that that the committee itself could be eliminated? Or that its serious (and, under Lieberman, neglected) responsibilities could be transferred to a new, yet-to-be created committee, one with someone at the helm who is loyal to the country, leaving Benedict Arnold Lieberman to play in his own little sandbox?
Could something like that happen? Even under the wussy Democrats? Is that just too, too far-fetched?
ok, i just found out that it was created in 1921 and reorganized in 1978…sigh
Actually you weren’t far off, Bush created the Homeland Security Council in the aftermath of 9/11. A terribly politicized one, that Democrats opposed.
There’s a little more to it, though. The HSC combined with the Committee on Governmental Affairs in 2005, meaning that now it’s both talking about security issues AND investigating the government itself. Lieberman’s chaired it since 2006. Have you heard anything concerning a Senate investigation on Bush’s corruption?
Now, what about when Obama’s president?
So wait, does this whole, “now is no time for retribution” thing mean that we won’t even get lip service paid to impeaching and trying Cheney, Bush, et all for their high crimes and treason against this country. I mean, I know it’s a long shot anyway, but at least before this I could hope that there would be some sort of action taken against these thugs and their cronies. Le sigh.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Love,
Abe….145 years ago TODAY
“And the Pharisees and scribes murmered, saying, ‘This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.’”