The Democratic Party has consistently been the party of "can’t we all just get along". What many of us in the grassroots gripe about as lack of backbone, the democratic establishment sees as "getting along". Let me state this bluntly – allowing Lieberman to remain as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee is NOT "getting along", it is simply WEAKNESS.
What our party doesn’t seem to realize is that getting along and being respectful are very important, but giving a person who has consistently spoken out against Democrats and Democratic ideas not only approval, but nearly unregulated power is quite another. If the democrats allow Lieberman to remain as the head of the Homeland Security Committee, then they are giving him influence that he does not deserve, and that they can not get back. He has not just become a Republican on security issues recently, but many of his social issues are also starting to morph into the Republican viewpoints. The only solution to this is to take away his power. If Democrats take a pro-active stand to discipline Lieberman for speaking out against them during this election season, then three important things will happen:
- Any criticism that Lieberman has of the Obama administration (and you better believe that he will) will fall on deaf ears – he will literally no longer have a high horse to sit on.
- It will set the stage for a real progressive to represent Connecticut in the Senate – because Lieberman will not be re-elected there.
- It will be a sign to other democrats in congress that they need to stand together on issues – instead of being the "herd of cats" that Will Rogers so appropriately spoke about.
I am a high school teacher in real life. My first year teaching was the hardest and least productive of my teaching career. The reason was because I assumed that all of the kids would like me, and so they would act appropriately. They didn’t. I failed to establish discipline at the beginning, and it haunted me the rest of the year. Even after I learned my lesson, the damage had already been had done. Obama is the new leader of the Democrats. The best way to show strength as a leader is to show that there are rewards and punishments associated with actions. Lieberman is the first test of Obama’s leadership. If the Democratic Party excuses his with no punishment whatsoever, then what he will take out of it is that he can do and say anything – and so will all the other democrats in congress. Once authority has been compromised, it is very hard to get it back...