This just in: according to Politico, everyone's favorite Benedict Arnold, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman (CT for Lieberman Party-CT) has become the first CorporaDem to announce that he will join the GOP filibuster of any health care reform bill that does contains a public option. It was only a matter of time before one of these shills for the health care lobby called Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's bluff. By announcing yesterday that he would ensure that the merged bill the full Senate would vote on would include a public option with an opt-out clause. Reid was essentially betting that he'd be able to get all 60 members of the caucus to vote their conscience on the bill itself when it came up for a straight up-or-down vote, but that no member of the caucus would go so far as to join a GOP filibuster. Now Lieberman is testing that proposition. So who will blink first, Reid or Lieberman?
It's easy to understand why Lieberman thinks he'll be able to get away with dealing a crippling blow to President Barack Obama's agenda and defeating the best chance ever to get meaningful health care reform in this country. After all, Lieberman played the role of "sore loser" after his defeat in the CT Democratic primary in August 2006, changing his party affiliation to the until-then-unheard-of Connecticut for Lieberman Party. With massive Republican support, he won reelection, and was forgiven by Democratic party leaders for this act of party disloyalty by being allowed to keep his seniority, his membership in the caucus, and his plum committee chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. The excuse Reid and the other Senate leaders gave was that we needed Lieberman to maintain a slim majority of 51 votes. Lieberman swore he was a Democrat and pledged to support the Democratic nominee, yet he became McCain's attack dog in 2008, launching vicious slanders against candidate Obama. For this second betrayal, Lieberman was rewarded with being allowed to keep his seniority, caucus membership, and his committee chairmanship. Again the excuse was trotted out that we still needed Lieberman, because otherwise, we wouldn't have enough votes to override a GOP filibuster. It's funny how times change but Lieberman doesn't. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. As all of us "crazy liberals" warned, each capitulation to Lieberman only whetted his appetite for more disloyalty, increasingly secure in the knowledge that he could do whatever the hell he wanted without any consequences whatsoever.
However, there is reason to hope this time will be different. Health care reform has been the signature Democratic party domestic policy issue for at least the last 40 years. Now, when the party is at last on the verge of turning their words into reality, the twisted specter of Sore Loserman rises again. The White House and Senate leadership know that failure to pass health care reform this year will have catastrophic effects on next year's midterm elections and beyond. Midterm elections are won by whichever side gets their base to turn out in greater numbers, and surely Reid can't be so stupid as to realize that the voters he and other vulnerable Dems are counting on to turn out next year (aka, me and you) actually will if health care reform fails because of lack of willpower.
So with the president in a "quiet mode" on health care, it's all up to Reid now. Back in November 2005, he briefly showed some spine when he called the Senate into emergency secret session to call attention to the GOP's failure to complete an investigation into the faked intel on Iraqi WMDs. For most of the last 4 years, he seems to have misplaced that spine, becoming akin to Teddy Roosevelt's critique of William McKinley ("no more backbone than a chocolate eclair!"). Has our Cowardly Lion finally found his misplaced courage or will Lieberman score yet another victory for the Corporate Powers That Be? Only time will tell, but if Reid can once again channel his inner Dirty Harry, he'd tell these CoporaDems: "You are free to vote however you choose on the final bill when it has an up-or-down vote (since we already have the votes to pass it without you), but you WILL NOT join any GOP filibuster or you WILL become a pariah and you WILL lose your committee chairmanships and seniority and we WILL primary your ass at the fist available opportunity. So I guess the question you have to ask yourself is, do you feel lucky? Well do ya, punk?"