Sure has been an interesting 24 hours following the reaction to (more) Democratic capitulation in the form of Joe Lieberman. Sigh, it's like we're Wiley E Coyote and Joe is the Road Runner. One of these ACME traps will work one of these days, damnit. Not the best of days.
But then I asked myself this profound question. Why the (4 letter word, begins with f) should I give a damn about Joe freaking Lieberman?
I'll tell you what my answer was on the jump. And if you'd like, share your own answer after.
So, again, the question. Why in the blue hell should I give a damn about Joe Lieberman?
Sure, it sucks that he will chair the Homeland Security committee. But that committee will have more Democrats on it this year. Joe will still have to get any stupid crap that comes out of his brain through the Senate. And if the Senate leadership can't do the right thing, I guess we'll just have to do it (again) in 2012.
It sucks that Harry Reid has no balls. Thankfully we have a President who may, for once in our lifetimes, make good use of a pansy Majority Leader who will happily go along with anything. And let me be not the first to say that I'm done with Reid as majority leader. First good progressive who decides to challenge him has my support. Else we'll have a chance to take care of the Reid problem when he faces his next primary.
So I'm not going to lose my top over this showing of weakness. It's not right, it's not fair, but it doesn't mean that much at the end of the day. What we did on November 4th earned us the right to never have to think about Joe Lieberman again. He doesn't matter anymore.
You see, in the spirit of being a Democrat I'm keeping my powder dry (yawn). Why? Because I need all my righteous indignation for the days to come when it will really matter.
The day there is a first tough vote on Kennedy crafted universal health care. Any person who comes out against will feel our collective wrath and I'll be right there with you.
The day there is a first tough vote on redeploying our troops out of Iraq. That's the day I will be saving all my anger and rage for anyone who dares try to keep my loved ones stuck in a sand death trap from coming home. As far as Joe goes, I already assumed I didn't have his vote. See, like I said, doesn't matter. Irrelevant and obsolete.
The day that we're moving forward on real tax relief for the middle class and some fools without honor demand it be loaded with big business giveaways, I'll be there. To demand that a clean bill pass and to tear down everyone who is foolish enough to support watering it down.
To be blunt, my calculations find the Barney Frank Marijuana Bill to be approximately 30 times more important than Joe freaking Lieberman.
So be mad, deal with it, but pretty quickly we need to move on. Because we'll soon have a new President bogged down with a Senate so versed in failing you'd think they were all Cubs fan. Being a Cubs fan myself I can get away with saying that! Point is, we'll need to be there to hold feet to fire and demand the change we voted for. Don't burn yourself out on this crap, or think it's time to take your ball and go home. Now is the time to double down, and get ready to fight for the things that actually matter post Nov. 4th 2008. So, you know, no Joe...