I’ve had a lot of respect for Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) since I started following him during the days of the Communication Decency Act and CALEA and the Internet liberties stuff that was big news in the mid-90s when I hit the Internet.
As it happens, I agree with him again when it comes to what the Democrats ought to do about their Lieberman problem. Lieberman stood around while the McCain campaign was talking about how Obama “palled around with terrorists” and generally said all manner of scuzzy things about Obama. I know politics ain’t beanbag, but by the same token, politics ain’t beanbag; so Lieberman should, at a minimum lose his chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Leahy said:
“I’m one who does not feel that somebody should be rewarded with a major chairmanship after doing what he did.”
“I felt some of the attacks that he was involved in against Senator Obama…went way beyond the pale,” Leahy continued. “I thought they were not fair, I thought they were not legitimate, I thought they perpetuated some of these horrible myths that were being run about Senator Obama.”
“I would feel that had I done something similar,” Leahy concluded, “that I would not be chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the next Congress.”
I find Lieberman to be generally insufferable. In fact, I have a whole lot more respect for McCain than I do Lieberman. Hopefully the Democratic Senators extract some sort of price for Lieberman’s antics.
Yep. Lieberman has carefully crafted a public image as a wise statesman who is far above the mud pit of partisan politics. If he wants to be a man without a party, that’s fine. But he seems to want all of the benefits of partisan politics without any of the burden. I don’t support litmus tests on any substantive issue for party membership, but not actively undermining one’s party’s candidates for high office seems to be quite little to ask. Again, if his conscience required such action, that’s fine. But if so, he should happily accept the consequences of his action.
One thing that makes me very happy: the vote will be by secret ballot. I think that may well do Joe in.