Tomorrow at 9 am, I will call Bill Nelson's office to urge that he vote to strip JM of his Homeland Security (HS) chairmanship. I will do so knowing that Nelson has already publicly advocated keeping JM as HS chair. I will do so knowing that this deal is probably already done. I hope that every other Kossack w/ a Dem senator (or 2) will do the same.
The proposed wrist slap where JM loses a subcommittee chair is, as Kagro X recently put it, Senatorial Steak Sauce. JM really doesn't care that much about losing a subcommittee chair. He cares a great deal about keeping the HS gavel.
This deal, of course, was always a slap in the face of the netroots community. Our prior disgust w/ JM became outright revulsion this year. It was bad enough that he conned roughly 1/3 of CT's Dem voters in order to defeat the duly chosen Dem senatorial nominee in '06. It was much worse when he became an advocate for the GOP nominee against his party's duly chosen prez nominee this year AND when he supported the oleagenous Norm Coleman in his attempts to keep Paul Wellstone's seat in the face of a determined challenge by Al Franken.
Since over 52% of the American public chose Obama as their prez on 11/4, however, this move is a slap in their face as well. Just 3 months ago, JM charged that our nominee had not put country first. He stated at a McCain rally in PA as follows:
But as he introduced Mr. McCain at a campaign event here on Tuesday, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut made the attack a lot more explicit, calling the election a choice "between one candidate, John McCain, who has always put the country first, worked across party lines to get things done, and one candidate who has not.’’
Fortunately, in the prez race, voters entered a verdict against JM and his views. In MN-Sen, however, the jury is still out. While I doubt that many Minnesotans care much about what JM has to say, in a race that close, JM's comments clearly did not help:
In his recent defense of Coleman, Lieberman cites his chairmanship by saying that he worked closely with the Republican and praising his work on the panel.
"To assert that Norm Coleman did anything less than a first-rate job on PSI demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the subcommittee and ignores the substantial positive changes that his investigations have caused," Lieberman wrote in the opinion piece.
That follows a lengthy statement issued by Lieberman late last month, which Coleman posted on his campaign website, saying that the Republican has uncovered "$80 billion of government waste, fraud and abuse."
"Norm has been aggressive in protecting taxpayers, and rooting out corruption," Lieberman said.
So, let me get this straight. A senator who defeated the majority party's nominee for his seat in '06 blasted the majority party's POTUS nominee in '08 and assisted a minority party senator in a tough race. Ordinarily, such a senator would hope to become a ranking member of a committee. He sure as hell wouldn't expect to be the chair of a major committee.
Evan Bayh warns us that, if JM doesn't get to keep HS, he might quit his seat. Bayh also worries that JM might stay in the Senate and oppose the Dems on key votes if he loses the HS chairmanship. At this point, worrying about retaliation from JM should be the least of our concerns.
What harm can JM cause in the future that he hasn't caused already? He tried to cost us the WH, and he may yet contribute to a Dem loss in a critical Senate race. As a minority member w/o a chairmanship, there appears to be little new mischief for him to make.
In his utterly execrable appearance on Rachel Maddow, Bayh suggested that JM apologize for his comments. While it has been almost a week since that appearance, no apology has yet been forthcoming. It appears, accordingly, that even the fig leaf of an apology will not be demanded.
We have spent the last 8 years watching the Dems getting rolled by the GOP. Those of us who are a little older recall seeing the Dems getting rolled on Iran/Contra, in the Thomas confirmation hearings, and on other occasions. The whole point of winning this year is to avoid getting rolled like that again. Letting JM keep SH would constitute flying the white flag before the first shot is fired.
Only 3 members of the Dem caucus (Carper, Dorgan, and Leahy) have publicly come out against JM. In a caucus of that size, it's an embarrasingly small #. Even if JM does prevail in this vote, we need to be make sure that we are heard on this issue.