November 18, 2008 07:26 AM UTC

Voting Against Lieberman Is Voting for Bipartisan Comity

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• by: davidsirota

Just a quick response to this post here at ColoradoPols attempting (rather ridiculously) to make the vote on Joe Lieberman some sort of referendum on purity or intelligence, rather than pragmatism and political street smarts.

I just want to reiterate a very, very simple point that I’ve made over and over again. It’s a point that is really important to make before the vote on whether Joe Lieberman remains chairman of the committee whose main mission is to investigate the executive branch.

Joe Lieberman has made clear he thinks Barack Obama is a socialist who is a danger to the United States as president. Therefore, putting any personal animosity against Joe Lieberman aside, it’s clear that while letting Lieberman caucus with Democrats is absolutely fine, giving Lieberman subpoena power on a committee whose mission is investigating the executive branch of the supposed socialist who supposedly is a danger to the United States is probably a bad idea.

In fact, if anyone remembers the interchanges between Dan Burton and the Clinton administration, it seems like denying Lieberman that subpoena power is quite literally the only way to guarantee the “bipartisanship,” “comity,” “reconciliation” and whatever other synonyms the David Broders and Unity ’08-ers and self-ordained “centrists” in Washington, D.C. purport to love.

Tje question about whether a senator supports or opposes giving Lieberman four-year subpoena power to tear down the Obama administration doesn’t pit supposed “centrist conciliators” who support Lieberman against “rabid partisans” who oppose him. Though the media insists that Lieberman will always be the honorable independent “centrist” because almost a decade ago he gave a single speech attacking Bill Clinton for getting a blow job, Lieberman has since proven himself to be one of the most partisan attack dogs in the entire Congress.

Therefore, the vote over Lieberman’s charmanship pits two different groups against each other: People who put Senate clubbiness and friendliness with the individual Joe Lieberman over the true “country first” goal of having a Democratic Senate that works in tandem and conciliation – not in subpoena-empowered witch-hunting opposition to – the new Obama administration.