Lieberman: The Problem Is the Secret Ballot

"Hillary Rodham Clinton isn’t certain she would accept the Secretary of State post even if Barack Obama offers it to her, several people close to the former first lady say."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15738.html

First of all, Al, once again thanks for injecting some sane perspective into todays proceedings. Lieberman is an ass, to be sure, but its not like the Democrats retained Mussolini.

@Kit - As far as Cabinet appointments go, we aren't going to know until we know. Is Hillary really reluctant to take the job? Is she covering herself because she knows something in the vet is going to trip her up? Find out this and more tomorrow on "The Edge of Night!".

Seriously, I find it humorous that others seem to be able to go through the vetting process without such soap opera.

I've been thinking about the Lieberman issue.  As much as I do not care for Lieberman, there are a number of Republicans who supported Obama throughout the campaign.  Perhaps not campaigning as actively or with quite as high a profile in the Senate, nevertheless, there were Republican defectors (i.e. Colin Powell among others) whom, I think, helped Obama and we appreciate that.

Lieberman took, yet another, big gamble and he lost right along with McCain.  I have a feeling it will play against him in the long run regardless of today's non-day-of-reckoning.

It doesn't seem to be Obama's style to suddenly command this current, spineless Congress to rebuke him at this early stage of the game, but over time... well, we'll see how much clout he has this time next year?  I could be wrong?

the security condition of the hotel parking lot. Or is that a voting booth?  It looks more like a Motel 6 room with wrinkled curtains and a drawn shade overlooking the parking lot.   Joe's vision of his Homeland Security chairmanship role?

Whose insight and reasoning never ceases to amaze me. So, Hillary may not be SoS after all. I am glad I learned the ropes from Al during the primaries and didn't get worked up over this possibility. THANK YOU!

Part of the fallout from the primaries has been a call to eliminate caucuses everywhere and replace them with primaries, and one of the claims made against them is, unsurprisingly, this same charge that being forced to publicly declare for one candidate or another violates the spirit of our "secret ballot."

Of course, these are party affairs, not governmental ones, and this push to eliminate caucuses ignores the many reasons why they are effective, especially the ability to persuade others to shift allegiance or find a new home if their candidate fails to draw sufficient support.  And the additional investment of time and energy they require of participants ensures that those who are most enthusiastic, educated and informed about the candidates are the ones who select the party's representative.

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/kennedy-taps-clinton-for-big-health-reform-job-2008-11-18.html

Melissa - Gee, ya think Teddy has his own horse for Sec of State?

I love a good chess game.

Isn't this the same task force spot she was denied last week?  Curioser and curioser.

Things are looking up for Kerry.

All of this hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth abouth Lieberman.  My opinion: it's real hard for Lieberman to stray when PE Obama has him by the short hairs. 

Do we continually have to reinforce the lessons from the primary and the general election?  PE Obama plays 3-D chess while others play tiddlywinks.  He's gonna make mistakes, but this is not one of them.  Why make Lieberman a martyr, a cause celebre?  Lieberman's not a martyr without a pause, but what he is, IMHO, is a political eunuch.

-- Sagittarius

Al - I knew that article would make you very happy. lol The plot thickens.

For these words:

Finally, in this process of transition, we're going to win some and we're going to lose some. What's important is that we win or lose like adults, and not let our disappointments or sometimes legitimate anger cloud our strategic thinking for the next battle. This is a series of fights. Those that keep their heads will win more of them.

I also feel disappointed by Lieberman's non-punishment, of course, but I feel almost as disgusted by the overblown overreaction of the netroots, who come off like spoiled children. When I read their ranting, it honestly makes me forget that I agree with most of their positions because their rhetoric is just so incredibly one-note and unsophisticated. And why are they so obssessed with the guy, exactly? I could never produce the sheer amount of vituperation that any one of those "progressive" bloggers so easily generates, and I'm not that mellow of a guy. Good to see some perspective.

Marilyn Monroe's bra?

the campaign of President-elect Barack Obama.  While there is necessarily a much larger circle of people involved in staffing the entire Executive branch of government with a party change, I have yet to find a reason to fault the transition team's work.  When in doubt, hold the speculation and trust that Obama has a plan.

I have to say that I'm not thrilled with the idea of Lieberman retaining subpoena power over the new administration, but I'm comforted by the belief that Joe the Senator doesn't have the cojones to execute a true power play.

If Reid is deposed - if the netroots backlash, threat of a primary, and inherent weakness (you're right about that) take their inevitable toll - who'd win the post in an open vote?

I agree with you totally

the netroots have been like spoiled children today, they want their pound of flesh and they want it now. They are willing to cut off their nose to spite their face.

in the coming months, when President Obama needs the 60th vote to pass his big broad change legislation...Health care reform, ending the war, new energy policy, closing Gitmo...and so on....what do you think Liebrman's stance will be?

and how can Obama who campaigned on bringing the country together for two years start his tenure with vengance and revenge? the tunnel vision of the left bloggshere is maddening

there is a big picture here...

and yet I can't help but think this might have been the right move, the politically smart move, as it leaves him beholden to Obama and the party. Remember, Lieberman has to answer to his constituents in four years -- so he better get his act together fast if he wants to be seen as a Democrat.

I could be wrong about this. Perhpas the moral hazzard is more important. But I'm not willing to second guess Obama, who was williing to stand by and see this happen -- perhaps even encourage it. I think he's clearly demonstrated that he's smarter and way more mature than all of us.

Hopefully, Howard Dean was right that we have bigger fish to fry. At the same time, of course I'm disappointed (even disgusted). How can anyone who has put love and sweat into advancing the interests of the party not be? We'll just have to see how it plays out.

Now if Begich can cinch up Alaska tonight, I'm sure I'll forget most of my disappointment about old what's-his-face.

Al,

You have identified the real problem here (as usual).

I immediately called Sen. Casey's office today to demand to know his vote on Lieberman. I'm not holding my breath waiting for an answer however.

Please crosspost this piece at Daily Kos, maybe it will help focus some of the anger and vituperate ranting on the real culprit,  the secret vote, the lack of transparency and therefore no accountablity.

Thanks, AntKat

Connecticut has a Republican Governor whose term is up in 2010. If Lieberman storms off, she can appoint a Republican in his place. While Connecticut is mostly a Democratic state these day, why take the risk that Rell could appoint someone moderate enough to win a term? Even worse, she could appoint herself, and being pretty popular, be a long-standing presence in the Senate.

If they hold off, Rell could be replaced with a Democratic Governor. If that happens, pushing Lieberman to the side would not be a big problem. This may especially be true if Ohio replaces Voinovich or Pennsylvania finally put Specter out to pasture, padding the Senate numbers. Lieberman might then decide to retire rather than try to hold his seat against a party that no longer has any use for him.

Joe Lieberman's support of McCain was mainly around foreign policy matters, in particular the Iraq War, which cost him the Democratic nod in CT, due to the netroots, probably.   But the Iraq War is winding down.   He has been a supporter of most Democratic domestic policies.   So he is useful in the Senate within reach of the Democratic leadership.  He is also beholden to them , as others have said.   Further, he will be 70 years old when his current term is up.   Will he run again?   Or sort of fade into the sunset of his life, faced with a challenge from some younger generation candidate?   I'm sure there will be strong opposition to him in CT in 2012 because of his support for McCain.   So how to make him valuable to the President during these four year?   Co-opt him.  Not a bad move, IMHO.

My first thought when I heard about the vote this morning was that this was a case where Joe screwed the Democrats but that they (the D's) believed him when he told them lie #3....

"I'll still respect you in the morning."

However, I do think Joe is on a very short leash as far as going astray, one seriously wrong vote and I suspect he would lose the Chairmanship.  This may well serve to keep him on the reservation far better than anything else could have.

One more concern is that I would like to see that committee become a lot more proactive than it has been during Joe's tenure.

What if, down the road, Homeland Security is restructured?  FEMA is pulled back out, etc.  It's possible the agency may not be the same as it is now. Or even exist as currently structured. If it could be created under Bush, it could be uncreated.  Isn't the O-Team looking at all the federal agencies? May not be such a big deal that Lieberman chairs it.

The Field is an oasis of sanity in a blogosphere gone mad. I am not exactly thrilled with Lieberman, but I got burned out on this issue quite awhile ago. Of all the pressing challenges that our country and the incoming Obama Administration face, and that we should be organizing around, Lieberman is not even on my list. With all the time and energy that the netroots have poured into this, what better could have been accomplished?

Holder? Eric Holder? Oh, THAT one.

;-)  Stevens is gone!  Is that 59?

Okke - This is the same issue as with Greg Craig (that all skilled attorneys end up representing some bad people and companies, and that's part of the US system that says everybody has a right to an attorney). I don't give two ratatouilles who Holder represented. He'll be the best Attorney General since Ramsey Clark. Watch him.

Nobody should mistake my distaste for HRC's SoS trial balloon as being opposed to other former Clinton administration people.

Tom W - Good question. Back in the 90s, Daschle got it in an insurgent campaign to Dodd who everyone thought had it locked up. I'd say that if the Democratic women in the senate decided among themselves who among them should be the next Senate Leader, the men would have to go along. Clearly that could end up being HRC, or Feinstein, or Boxer, or Mikulski, or another. That would be my first hunch as to how it would play out. (That said, I don't think Harry Reid is vulnerable to a primary challenge in Nevada.)

That's 58.

Franken will be 59.

Karma is a bitch after all.

amk

Roy - so GA could be 60?  And does that include Lieberman, or could it be 60 without him?

WOW!  GOTV in GA!

Yes, it is the same issue as with Greg Craig. I don't believe for a minute that making a career choice to represent one of America's most evil corporate entities in a case where they're charged with hiring death squads to protect their plantations qualifies you in any way to "bring civil liberties and civil rights back into the legal system". I believe professional choices mean something more than that it is just part of a system. But maybe I'm wrong and Dick Cheney's corporate past and career choices uniquely qualified him too to be high up in government or at least it didn't matter. In short, Al, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this issue.

Al,

Keeping in mind what you said, do you think that Reid might just give up his position as Majority Leader since it seems to be making him less than popular back home (in the context of the general election, as opposed to a strong primary)? And if he did, why wouldn't you think that a known Obama ally (like, oh say, Majority Whip Dick Durbin) wouldn't take the position?

Hi Al! While I completely agree with the sentiment and would love nothing more than to have the dems dispose of warhawk Lieberman, I think I stand educated by this commentary in the Huffington Post.

I tend to to agree with Heilbrunn that in matters of state and governance, sometimes giving up on some of your deepest (and most emotional) desires in order to gain strategic position may be the wiser choice. I think that as many of the right wing nuts have been saying since the election, their only (and very poor) strategy at this point is going to be trying to make the country ingovernable for Obama, that in 2012 they can try to send another nut job like Palin or Gingrich to the presidency. I think that while the purist in me completely rejects the notion of Lieberman being forgiven, the pragmatist in me thinks that as Howard Dean said, this is one more shrewd move on the part of Obama and the dems, for it takes away from morons like Limbaugh any credibility that their hate rhetoric might have had otherwise. Sometimes having your enemy close to you is the best way to stay out of harm, and I believe that Obama has 100 times more wisdom and political skill than Lieberman will ever have, if it comes down to a game of who needs to keep who in check.

Then again, I might be totally rambling and wrong, so I appreciate any thoughts :)

You might want to read this about Holder if you are baffled why people consider his possible appointment a good thing. I'm with Al on this; the legal system requires both sides to have lawyers. Somebody has got to do it. I would rather it was somebody who does it right and makes sure that due process is followed even for the worst of people. The law does not and should not discriminate and say that some people are more deserving of good legal representation than others.

Martin in Georgia could be the 60th seat, including Lieberman (and Sanders). Perhaps that's partly why Lieberman received just a wrist slap though, honestly, I think it has more to do with clubbiness.

When people around the blogosphere - including many I respect - are losing their minds over this, I'm glad to see you haven't.

Meanwhile, here's a nice pair of videos for people wishing to wash away the taste of the bile being flung about.

Laura, I don't argue with what you say. What's more, I can think of plenty legitimate reasons for any lawyer to take these cases; they're interesting, they pay well, they're high profile, they're career boosters - I have no issues with any of that. What I don't agree with is that subsequently these lawyers should be appointed in a change administration, as if their previous career choices don't have any political meaning.

I remember from much earlier in the campaign how cool everybody thought it was that Obama, instead of taking a job - which he could have - with some legal powerhouse, worked for a small firm and became a community organizer and, in short, stayed on the right side of the issues. Now I'm told that this doesn't really matter when it comes to whom he appoints.

admin from a respected TPM Cafe blogger, flyonthewall.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/flyontnewall/2008/11/potpourri.php

Seems one day after playing hardball, Mullen had to walk back his one-day old statement. Chicago at work ?

amk

Okke,

You say you believe in the system, but you want to punish those very people who make the legal system work. There's no way to reconcile the two beliefs, if a lawyer really believes that they can't advance because they defended an unsavory or unpopular client will stop taking those cases, and the system breaks down.

As my Constitutional law professor likes to repeat, there is no race of angels to whom we can turn to to govern us. Your reasoning for opposing Holder and Craig because you don't like some of their clients (which is almost inevitable for ANY lawyer) just doesn't hold water.

I'm inclined to view qualifications on past work and not just selected statements. But I've no opinion on Holder since I cannot yet find good details on his work. FWIW, my favorite quote about lawyers from one of the greats, Charles H. Houston:

"A lawyer's either a social engineer or he's a parasite on society."

Unions always tell workers who are thinking about signing a union card that no one else -- employer or employee -- needs to know who has signed a card. 99/100 unions maintain that confidence and tell only those few other most trusted organizers that need to know who signed and did not sign who in turn are scrupulous on maintaining that confidence. Few if any unions seek to employ peer pressure broadly among the workforce to encourage non-supporters out of fear that if the supporters and non-supporters become broadly known this will get back to the employer and the union supporters will be punished by the employer. Typically signing a union card is a private one on one, cloak and dagger, under the radar, highly confidential process. Obviously unions never never advise employers who signed cards, out of fear of retribution. All this is of some passing importance, given the (faint?) hope that we will have a debate on EFCA sooner or later.

As a union-side labour lawyer I find the notion that it doesnt matter who a lawyer chooses to represent verging on the absurd.  Its like saying that it doesnt matter who you choose to practice journalism on behalf of (people or capital). The analogy to criminal defense lawyers is weak -- there is a distinction beween representing poor powerless (alleged) criminals who do "bad things" facing incarceration in an unjust penal system and representing powerful criminals who do bad things in a system designed to protect such behaviour. It's the difference between devoting your life to trying to redress systemic power imbalances or to excarbating them. Holder chose to devote his last 8 years to getting filthy rich(er) representing well-heeled thugs and to me that still says something about the guy in the same way that his earlier work for the NAACP stands to his credit.   

Okke - It was cool that Obama chose to work in community organizing rather than for a large law firm after graduation. But I haven't heard anyone argue that Obama would have been disqualified or unfit to be President had he chosen to work in the law firm instead.

Al,

I'm not sure that today's vote on Lieberman would have turned out any differently if their was transparency on the way the Senators cast their vote.  Given the clubby good ol' boy culture of the Senate, my guess is that Lieberman would have received even more votes of support, because Senators are loathe to alienate each other. 

For me, this is a tough loss to swallow because it is a reminder of just how far we have to go to bring progressive values into the mainstream.  I don't expect to live long enough to see the day....

Eric Holder could prove he's a good choice for the AG post by beginning to address, once in the chair, the ethnic, and gender, discrimination issues within federal law enforcement agencies that DOJ attorneys have for years expended substantial taxpayer resources to further encourage through their vigorous defense of the government's authority to never be wrong -- to the last ounce of blood when Holder was deputy AG under Clinton; though that mentality within the Justice Department leadership both preceded him and succeeded him to be fair.

Following is a list of the class-action discrimination lawsuits that were filed, pending or whose roots trace back to the Clinton administration — and whose bitter residue has carried over into the Bush years — and which DOJ attorneys all along the way, at the direction of their Washington bosses, have worked overtime to undermine and scuttle as the lawyers for the U.S. government in these cases:

ATF -- African American agents

Secret Service -- African American agents

U.S. Customs -- Hispanic Agents

DEA -- Hispanic agents

FBI -- African American agents

And I'm sure I've likely left one or two off the list.

Holder was Deputy AG, the No. 2 person in Justice, from 1997 to 2001. So he was in power when these issues emerged or otherwise reverberated through the halls of Justice -- and they have continued since he left DOJ.

Maybe he was unable to move the bureaucracy at the time toward a more equitable, less prejudical, outcome for these agents. I've personally covered too many stories involving this harsh reality, and seen far too many careers and lives destroyed under the good ol' boy system that has too long dominated law enforcement, and Washington in general for that matter. After all, both Bill and George are good ol' boys, right?

It's hard to believe that many agents of color across that many agencies were just paranoid or imagining racism and discrimination within their ranks. Likewise, it is easier to believe Holder tried, but couldn't solve the problem, or was otherwise unable to back the DOJ attorneys off these agents -- or prevent their supervisors from retaliating in spades against the Hispanic and African American agents for the audacity of their hope in seeking to defend their legal rights in court.

But now that Holder is primed to be the man in DOJ -- or appears to be -- and under the administration of a president who promised us all change (not more slippery excuses and double talk) we can only hope, and should presume, that justice will finally prevail, or at least advance, and that the dysfunction caused by racism and discrimination within our federal law enforcement ranks will soon be vanquished.

I'm willing to hold out hope and some time for that nobel cause. But I also won't be fooled again.

My two cents ... and I feel a fair statement that shouldn't be interpreted as Obama bashing, or Holder bashing for that matter. I simply find it hard to be overly sanguine in the face of great power and the tracks of history.

I prefer to discern the facts around which truth can be organized.

Kennedy taps Clinton for big health reform job

By Jeffrey Young, The Hill

Posted: 11/18/08 03:20 PM [ET]

Fourteen years after failing to deliver health reform for her husband’s White House, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) will play a key role in advancing the issue in 2009 — if she remains in the Senate.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) designated Clinton to head a task force to develop a Senate Democratic proposal to expand health insurance coverage as part of his larger push to move a major overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system next year.

More

I do not know a lot about Holder either, except inasmuch as he was one of the VP vetting team, and the article that I linked to earlier. I posted the link in order to provide a perspective on why some people (including Al, from his comments) think that Holder would be a good choice. Each person should read all information that is available to them, and make their own decision. I do, however, think that too much focus on a lawyer's client list is not really the most useful way of making a judgment.

I also think that we need to be clear what "change" means when it comes to Obama. The corporate media seems to have some trouble with this as well. Obama wants to change policies and he will pick the people he believes are the most effective in helping him in policy change. Particularly when it comes to working with Congress or with federal bureaucracies, I and others believe it is necessary to have people who are experienced in the ways that these entities work. For good or bad, the only place that Democrats who are available to work today will have gotten experience of the executive branch is under Clinton. To dismiss anybody who ever served under Clinton as a "retread" is to cut off your nose to spite your face, IMHO. Both Clinton and Bush tried to bring in a bunch of people from the outside who did not understand how the system works, and we saw what came of that.

And to claim that it is not "change" because of who the people are is also short-sighted, IMHO. The change Obama ran on and that the American people expect him to achieve is, again, change in policy. I will be judging him on that.

Has represented, and will in the future represent, some of the most hated and reviled individuals and organizations in American life.

Deal with it.

Obama Vetting Process

amk

HRC had asked Kennedy to form a healthcare subcommittee and name her chair. He refused.

Here, he's forming a three-chaired taskforce, and is giving her the insurance portfolio --- the other two being prevention / public health (Harkin) and quality (Mikulski).

So Teddy's doing it his way --- giving HRC less power than she wanted, but (hopefully) enough to help draw her away from State.

over at dKos today... including the comments by Markos himself. Not a pretty sight.

With the fieldhands here, a much better tone. While many of us feel tar and feathers would let punishment fit the crime for Joe the Butthead, letting him sit and stay as long as he behaves could work out best in the long run. 

I really appreciate the cool heads over here at times like this. Thanks, all, for your measured opinions and comments; and thanks Al for not letting us buy into the hype at every turn!

Al

WaPo is reporting that Bush is pushing his cronyism into the admin posts (which of course is denied by the RW enabler, Ms Perino and of course dem senators "respectfully" urge Bush to honor his commitment to smooth transition ??? ).

Will this not crimp Obama's style ?

amk

I also think that we need to be clear what "change" means when it comes to Obama. The corporate media seems to have some trouble with this as well. Obama wants to change policies and he will pick the people he believes are the most effective in helping him in policy change.

Appointments are policy.

By policy I mean a political course of action such as universal healthcare or banning torture as should be obvious from the context. An appointment of a particular person may suggest what types of policy Obama may seek to implement, if certain policies are particularly associated with that person, but it is not a policy in itself. Obama's appointees will (or should) do what he tells them. As Al has said many times, it is Obama who will be setting the policy and that is why Al does not consider most appointments to be the real battle.

This argument seems to be getting pointless as you and I clearly have two very different views of the process and are just talking past each other. I have set out my views and you have set out yours, so I think we need to agree to disagree.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/18/171550/72/28/663074

amk

the Prez and the congress are so ? What's the philosophy behind it ?

Years of accumulated wealth...oops, wisdom to help/aid the government ?

amk

The President is term-limited, which was pushed through by the Republicans to prevent another FDR.

Neither the House nor the Senate is term-limited.  Many states have term limits for their legislators and governors.  Some of those states tried to term-limit their House and Senate members, but this was declared unconstitutional.  The reasoning is that according to the Constitution, only Congress has the right to determine eligibility for its members (based on my reading, I agree).

I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine how likely Congress is to term-limit itself...

Here's a comment from a reader of Ambinder re Lieberman

One of the most important points about winning poker is counting your opponents' chips. Joe Lieberman is "small stacked" in chips and that's why Obama wants him at the table. How so? Because Obama will win those chips later on in the "game." Obama is a poker-player (and I'm sure that Lieberman is not). He knows "when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em." Trust me, he will call Lieberman's bluffing (actually, he'll have someone else call it) when it's time, when he needs the votes for important legislation, for example. And if Saint Joe starts to feel comfortable and begins to "bully the table" again, he'll get called and show his weak hand against, undoubtedly, Obama's winning hand. The President-elect hasn't missed a "read" yet; he knows he can play Lieberman for as long (or as short) as he wants to.

KD

1. Our national political media is pathetic. They remain focused on personality and imagined vendettas, agenda, and fake whisper campaigns - when the cold truth is that this country (indeed, the world) faces a bitter ice-storm of an economic crisis that most of us have never witnessed. That the new President needs the team that he personally selects - whatever each of us may feel about about any individual - should go without saying.

2. The netroots shouldn't get sucked into this vortex of weird personality spin. The world's moving on. Obama is so very clearly moving on. Hell, the real action in the last week - for those who missed it - was the incredible "instant" online organizing of gay marriage advocates.

3. "Change" is just as clearly this: a government of center-left Democrats taking over in a time of crisis, supported (and/or challenged when effective) by an unprecedented wired grassroots movement. That's it.

4. Congress is where the real blood will be spilled. Obama will have his choices at the end of the day, period. He's clearly resolute in this. His real battlefield will be on the Hill, putting some steel in Democratic spines and winning over Republican centrists. Hint: the latter will be much easier!!

Thank you Al.

Obama is damn smart and shrewd.   He's so many steps beyond those that report and comment on him that it's ridiculous.  All except you Al.  You seem to get how he operates and what his motivations are.  Thank you.

amk

An appointment of a particular person may suggest what types of policy Obama may seek to implement, if certain policies are particularly associated with that person, but it is not a policy in itself.

Yes it is. Appointing Sarah Palin is a policy decision that sends an entirely different political message than appointing Joe Biden. People are to be judged on their views and resume even if they're lawyers, and you appoint what fits your idea of that particular post best. Appointing Holder is an entirely different thing than appointing, say, John Edwards. It shows a different set of priorities, different judgment of the job at hand, different policy.

remarked Andrea Mitchell in discussing the team Obama is putting together.

 Tom Daschle will be Health and Human Services secretary

Well, not exactly. But <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/18/AR2008111803505.html?nav=rss_politics">Greenwald took a crack at the Holder nomination</a> and actually sounded reasonable, downriight Giodarno-esque! For instance, he echoed the comment about how attorneys should not be judged by their clients. (Meanwhile, I don't even want to see the headline of any of his doubtessly numerous Lieberman posts). I guess his blog might be semi-readable most of the time if he stuck to things he actually knows about.

On the other hand, I had to finally kick Firedoglake off of my RSS reader (yeah it was overdue, but some of the posters on there actually bring interesting things to my attention at times) for lumping together the Holder pick together with the Lieberman amnesty as proof of the Betrayal! of the Netroots! (thereby showing a committment to prolonging a narrative of "backstabbing" rather than thinking coherently about individual subjects). You can tell these guys have gotten to the point where they care a lot more about whether they are being respected as some imaginary "constituency" of spoiled brats, rather than whether good policy is actually going to be implemented (the most convincing critiques I've seen of the Lieberman decision relate to him being a poor chairman of his committee, but those ultimately get drowned out by the "how could they DO this to us" nonsense). At least Kos knows enough to drop the Liebercrap today (although I feel like that guy is playing both sides sometimes... does he really want us to buck the system or does he just want us to sign up to <i>his</i> system?).

While i find it fascinating to watch the back-and-forth over Hillary and Joe Lieberman, i think the Obama team might be operating on a whole other level.  Check these quotes in the HuffPost from Rahm to a group of Wall Street CEOs:

He stressed that the new administration would "throw long and deep," taking advantage of the economic crisis to push wholesale changes in health care, taxes, financial re-regulation and energy. "The American people in two successive elections have voted for change, and change cannot be allowed to die on the doorsteps of Washington," Mr. Emanuel said.

as US Attorney for DC in 1996.
 
My diary at kos' place http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/19/73027/712
 
I'm not going until he's asked at confirmation hearings if that's still his view.
 
Democrat for US Senate (Wisconsin 2012)

Nate Silver seems rather agnostic on the whole Lieberman affair. Seems to think Obama was making wise use of his political capital, which is what I've suspected as well.

Here's the link:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/dear-democrats-if-you-must-blame-...

turned me off of Hillary at State.

I disagree with the suggestion both that Hillary never wanted this job, or at least job title and that Obama wasn't seriously considering her.  I think Obama has a pretty high opinion of Hillary and an intuition of the political benefits of this move.  That said, the NY Times article makes it sound like Clinton wrestling for this and playing the media in this negotiation has rankled Team Obama.  I mean, how could Obama not be watching what's happening and imagine a similar headache happening after he's sworn in?  Maybe this is yet another strategic miscalculation by the Clintons.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/us/politics/20obama.html?_r=2&hp

The benefit of a Team of Rivals is diversity of perspectives not goals.  In the case of Samuel Chase, that was the drawback not the benefit.  Though Hillary was, like Seward, the New York Senator and "inevitable nominee" that the Illinoisan upset, under the surface, she may have more in common with Chase...

This will probably be unpopular on a place like this but the fact that Colin Powell argued privately against the Iraq War, then when the president regrettably decided otherwise, lobbied for his policy strongly recommends him to return to his post.  I mean essentially that amounts to Powell having both sound judgment and dedication to the chain of command.  The weak link in the chain was just the top of that command which we've traded in for something much better.