OK, now that Saxby Chickenshit won, can we kick Joe LIEberman out of the party?

We can't get to 60, so let's throw the bum out and let the Thugs have him.

They had 53 and we couldn't get ANYTHING done because we were too chickenshit to filibuster.

Reid won't do a thing.

Let's try it again: the decision by the Democratic caucus to allow joe to keep his chairmanship had nothing to do with the fabled, but essentially mythic "supermajority." Democrats don't vote in lockstep most of the time and there are plenty of situations in which Democrats such as Johnson, Landrieu, the Nelsons, and, before 2006, lieberman, would jump ship on cloture votes. And sometimes a repub like Collins or Snowe would buck their party.

And having joe in the caucus improves the numbers in terms of the allocation of seats on committees, so you can hold your breath, but the caucus isn't changing its mind on this.

Who are you to put down my thread? The words I'm thinking aren't Happy Holidays.

the several threads that suggest that Martin's defeat somehow impacts lieberman's status are embarassingly naieve. Sorry, but that's a fact.

"Spike, stop rubbing your onenote on the rug".

especially for cloture because he said at the republican convention that he would not want a filibuster proof Democratic senate.

Since neither are in it.

These are serious times with dozens of serious problems and if keeping 1 vote around to vote on social issues means passage of major bills, I'll grin and bear it while cursing his name.

But I'm willing to move on and hope the extra vote prevents more filibusters.

I've it before and I'll say it again, it would have been great if we had gotten 60 senate seats, but really 60 is merely a psychological mark of victory more then anything. Votes rarely go entirely along party lines, there's often a few people on one side or the other, or both, that vote the other way.

In order to get 60 seats in the senate you have to run moderates who can win in red states, that's part of how we've picked up so many seats, we ran moderates who better represented their state then the right wing extremists they often faced.

So even if we had 60 seats not counting Lieberman we'd still need his vote pretty often to get through a filibuster, because those moderates know that if they vote like a hardcore democrat all the time that they're probably going to be screwed come election time in their red state. It's the same way with moderate republicans (though we've knocked out a lot of them lately in heavily democratic years).

58 or 59 means 1-2 republicans voting with Dems (assuming the Dems are hopefully united). There are enough moderate republican senators like Susan Collins of Maine, among others, who can help us defeat filibusters. So we still need Joe's vote.

except on Iraq issues. On domestic he's more reliable then some other Dem senators, even Reid stated that publicly. My own take is that Obama is right- its over and he won and can afford to be magnanimous.

he said he did not want the Democrats to have a majority. With that sentiment, I'm assuming he is not good for any cloture votes nor for any votes on Democratic bills/amendments.

Booting Lieberman will make one more Republican we'll have to convert for each cloture vote.

Since we can't stop a filibuster along party lines, we need to be able to lean on him for those handful of times that it'll really matter. Take away his committee posts and he'll block cloture out of spite.

K&R

hack to take the heat while providing cover
for their own fling with the military industrial
complex.

Joe serves his purpose.

:puke:

back to the agencies that used to control security, therefore leaving Joe in a boat without a paddle. No agency, no committee.

:hi:

He has to move left in order for him not to get kicked out of the Senate in '12 (ahem, check his disapproval rate in CT right now).

:grr:

That was Dennis Kucinich, and he was rejected soundly.

Democrats, what a party. The Reich wing would not be so complacent.

No incoming President has ever prosecuted the previous administration. Ever. And Bush is not the first President to break a law.

it's the Bush one.

We have many big problems to solve, probably more than one political party can do on it's own. If we decide to adopt a scorched earth policy it might make some of us feel good at first, but such a policy would be tantamount to total war between the two political parties, and given all of these problems we can't afford that right now. We need the two parties working together, not at cross purposes from each other.

Revenge is such a destructive and mean spirited emotion. Obama is bigger than that and so should we be.

simply wants revenge in a different manner. :)

Sure, it would be sweet to kick him out. But that would be a short revenge. I think I might prefer the long term revenge of seeing him squirming and twisting to stay in the good graces of our party. And then let his state vote him out of office completely.

At this point I'm wondering who will even want to be seen with him, even just to have lunch or a cup of coffee. The republicans hate him, with the exception of McCain. And despite allowing him to retain his chairmanship, no democrat trusts him. His will be a lonely road for the remainder of his time in the Senate. Deservedly so. He will reap the fruit of his labor and it will be sour. Heh heh.

Obama ran a race stating that he wanted to change the partisan politics that have been running DC for the last 8 years. Lieberman got to keep his seat because Obama made it happen.

Remember, just because Joe is the chair of that committee doesn't mean that he is the last word on everything that happens. Republican was so annoyed with Jim Jeffords that they went to Sen. Gregg for any committee work they wanted done just to avoid using the chair Jim Jeffords.

"We" don't have the clout to do such a thing.