Monday, December 14, 2009

Lieberman Not Comfortable in His Own Skin

My prediction:  Lieberman: "I never left the party, the party left me."

"Since, really, 2006, Lieberman has felt alienated from his caucus, and he's grown more conservative. He does not care about liberals, who tried to drum him out of office in 2006; he seems to enjoy poking them in the eye. He's not likely to run for office again, so he's not terribly worried about loud protests. His contempt for liberals coincides with his new conservative friends, aides, colleagues, donors. (He was never a fiscal liberal to begin with, but his fiscal conservatism seems to have ripened lately.)
On health care reform:
"Lieberman blessed the Gang of Ten deal privately before those talks were completed, then reversed himself as soon as it became evident that the left saw a silver lining in the consolation prize of a Medicare buy-in proposal."
"There is the explanation that Lieberman is an unusually talented egoist; certainly obstreperous for the sake of seeming obstreperous. But if this impulse of Lieberman's governed his policy decisions, then he would certainly want to be seen as health care's savior, and not be content with being seen as its destroyer. Lieberman has designed his public campaign as a way to streeeetch out the debate as much as possible, and just as Democrats seem to be on the verge of reaching him, like a quantum particle, he appears instantly at a completely different location, rendering useless at least a week of hard soldering by the Democrats."
Further, "In 2000 after Al Gore conceded the presidential election, Joe Lieberman was given the chance to use his new prestige in our politics to take his place among the great senators. In a shocking and kind of tragic way, Lieberman has decided that he will leave the senate as a toad; a man indifferent to his actions and driven by anger and petty politics. And is it worth it for him? Let's see: Lieberman gets to stymie his own party on a much needed social reform that he himself has supported throughout his career and in exchange he gets....to be hated? a ruined legacy? Joe Lieberman is the very picture of politics without principle. He is precisely what this country must rise above in order to move on to a brighter day."
Is John McCain soon behind?
Why Lieberman Hates The Health Care Bill - The Atlantic Politics Channel

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