I know, I know - Democrats have often acted like sycophantic cowards the last, oh, eight years. And yes, Joe Lieberman called Obama a Marxist/Terrorist and campaigned for the other party (even their senatorial campaigns). But I'm starting to give Democratic politicians some slack on some of these "make do" decisions. We may want blood from the Republicans, but truth is, the senators are the ones who are fighting the real wars face to face every day, and right now, I am actually open to trusting them when it comes to keeping Lieberman fat and happy for now so we can:
Get. Shit. Done.
Please join me after the jump for why I think we're underestimating this latest decision on Lieberman.
In congress, the house is always the easiest to take control of, since it most directly reflects the current political desires of the electorate. Luckily, it also happens to be our year to control the white house. So the senate has always been the heaviest boulder to push up the hill precisely because 1) the vast majority of voters don't pay attention to congressional majorities (many are unaware what impact they have) and 2) the last time Democrats reached 60 we got social security and medicare (so Republicans have fought tooth and nail to prevent another 1965).
There is a diary on the rec list now explaining how Republicans are looking to sabotage the American economy by letting the big three automakers fail, which is despicable and borders on terrorism. My personal belief is Joe Lieberman is acting in the best interest of Israel and uses all these Republican attacks to keep American forces in the middle east to protect his religious homeland. This is why he otherwise votes with the dems most of the time, but is all out committed to the Iraq war.
There was a book out earlier this year about how Israel interfering with American foreign policy hurts both Israel and America. Unfortunately, I think it's a reasonable explanation for Lieberman's weird attachment to the Iraq war when otherwise he votes with common sense.
We need 60 senators. We need common sense leaders in charge and we need the full force of American government behind them. I'm all for punishing moderates when the time is right, but come on people - we need to save our goddamn country from tipping over the edge. You might ask, "OK so when is the right time?", knowing that we never ever seem to get to the right time to criticize the Democratic party. Well unfortunately, I don't think most low to moderate info voters in this country realize that we are fighting a real war on our hands against Republicans. They are literally sabotaging our country, and as long as they're even close to filibustering important laws, we need to suck it up and ally with our worst enemies and bring traitors back into the fold to win this war.
Right now we may yell and scream on the internet, but the only power we citizens have in fighting against the senate's decisions are elections. And we lost the last one against Lieberman. Sorry, but it's time to move on and do what's necessary with what we have.
I also want you to remember a few other decisions Democrats have made recently that we disagreed with, which turned out to have been at least useful tactically in gaining a majority:
- Offshore Drilling
- Turned out to be an opportunity to expand alternative energy funding and took it off the table for the election.
- FISA
- Can still be challenged by the ACLU as unconstitutional and was also taken off the table for the election. As explained in other diaries, would only be a small problem when the real enemy should be repealing the patriot act.
- Impeachment
- Would have distracted from the election and caricatured Democrats. Remember, we don't control the media like the Republicans do. It would have backfired in our face because the media for some reason doesn't take torture, lying, or treason seriously. We would have looked like we were overreacting. We can't take real action until either 1) We have a bigger loudspeaker or 2) We have a large enough majority that we have the full force of the law on our side.
We need Joe Lieberman for health care reform, ethics reform, union reform, and tax increases for the rich to beat down this deficit. President Obama can control Iraq how he pleases. We already won that part. Tactically, it's a win-win, but morally, it's a disaster.
These people we elected aren't stupid (at least the majority of Democrats aren't), and I'm willing to bet they took this into account before they let Lieberman continue to attack them on national TV. Give them some slack, and let's kick Lieberman out in 2012. I'll be the first one in line to campaign against him.