Joenertia

Marshall Whitman praises Joe Lieberman:

Bull Moose: The Moose has a mind-meld with the esteemed Senator from Connecticut over the bankruptcy bill. The Moose salutes Senator Lieberman for his strong stand against this flawed legislation. The Senator stated,

'I have always supported bankruptcy reform legislation in the Senate when it has reflected a bipartisan effort to enact a balanced bill for both debtors and creditors and I have opposed it when confronted with a bill that seemed one-sided. This is not a balanced bill. I voted against this bill because it failed to close troubling loopholes that protect wealthy debtors, and yet it deals harshly with average Americans facing unforeseen medical expenses or a sudden military deployment. The Senate simply rejected out of hand many worthwhile amendments that would have protected these and other working Americans who find themselves in dire financial straits through no fault of their own. As a result, I believe this is a seriously flawed bill and I am disappointed at its passage.'

This should be a lesson for all those lefties who have been in a full-throated fury against Joe. He is a Democrat in the proud tradition of Truman, JFK and Scoop...

Marshall Whitman's praise is greeted by laughter.

You see, Lieberman voted to close debate on the bankruptcy bill--a vote where 41 votes against would have stopped the bill dead. He only voted against the bill on the final passage vote, where 51 votes were needed to stop it. Thi way Lieberman can truthfully assure his banking-industry contributors that he did the heavy lifting in order to make sure that the bill passed. And he can also convince people like Marshall Whitman--who don't look under the surface of Senate procedure--that he voted against the "seriously flawed" bill and is "disappointed at its passage."

In short, Joe Lieberman has played Marshall Whitman for a fool, and Marshall fell for it.

Marshall Whitman needs to reconsider his political commitments. A politician who makes you look like a fool when you believe what he says--that's not a politician worth supporting.

Comments

[Ken]

Greeted by laughter is right. Incredulous laughter. Joe caved when it counted and stood firm when it didn't matter. Oh yeah, that's a "strong stand" isn't it?

The thing is, Marshall Whitman doesn't really seem like a fool in many of his other posts. What's the strange "mind meld" he has going on with Joe?

[Thor's Hammer]

I doubt that Whitman was truly fooled. The DLC wing is feeling the heat. Lieberman and Reid probably traded votes in some sort of bargain, and maybe to baffle the netroots.

[praktike]

I don't think the Moose was fooled by this ... but he is trying to pull the Moose fur over his readers' eyes.

And shame on the DLC for not using the bankruptcy bill as an opportunity for organization-wide spinal growth.

[praktike]

I do like the term "Jonertia" a lot, though.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/10/business/10bankrupt.html

A New Mood in Congress to Relax Corporate Scrutiny
By STEPHEN LABATON

WASHINGTON - In what has seemed a daily ritual, the Senate in the last two weeks has defeated the most modest attempts by Democrats to curb bankruptcy abuses by corrupt or troubled corporations and their senior executives.

The votes illustrate a new reality and a sharp swing of the pendulum in the Senate, which has nearly completed its work on the legislation that everyone expects will soon become law.

Just two and a half years ago, in the midst of plunging stock markets and widening business scandals that left many thousands of workers unemployed and without their retirement savings, fearful lawmakers rushed by a vote of 97 to 0 to adopt the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. It was the most aggressive federal anticorruption law Congress had adopted in decades. On the day of the Senate vote, the Dow Jones industrial average was down as much as 440 points. Days earlier, WorldCom executives disclosed the first details of the largest accounting fraud in history.

Now, as business scandals occupy a less prominent place in newspapers and the stock market is well above 2002 lows, the politics of financial regulation have sharply shifted.

The new mood has emboldened corporate lobbyists to ask for and receive more from lawmakers, who no longer seem to be concerned about recrimination at the polls. At the same time, business interests have picked up new allies in the Senate, giving them significantly more influence over its proceedings.

"How quickly things change," said Ann Yerger, executive director of the Council of Institutional Investors, a group of major shareholders that sought tough corporate governance and accounting rules....

[Emma Anne]

My Senator, Salazar, did the same thing. At least he is standing up for Social Security. Other than that he's been pretty disappointing.

[Linkmeister]

The Moose is mistaking Lieberman and the House New Democrats for fine upstanding members of the party of the little guy. As this letter shows, that crowd is lapping at the corporate trough.

http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=2584

[yam]

the moose is an unethical, disinterested parasite on the body politic. his resume is a mix of working for all manner of ideals and his latest handler, the dlc, is signing the checks, the dlc likes joenertia (thanks, praktike), ergo the moose likes joenertia.

qed.

[ozoid]

I sent the following to Wittman on 03/03, in response to a previous pro-Joe post of his about Michael Moore, values and foreign policy. I have no idea what either think they're doing, or, for that matter, the CT Dem party. Joe needs to take meetings with Zell Miller and Bill Clinton, then decide.

"I've read your blog with pleasure since its inception; I was stunned to read your post.

I do not understand why you would compare a comedian with a U.S. senator. Both sides have outlier comics like Limbaugh, Coulter, and Moore. Does Bill Frist worry about what's said and written by Limbaugh, Coulter, Savage, and the rest of a very long list?

No doubt, Social Security needs some revision. But a solution reflecting Democratic values should not be hammered out across a table from Lindsey Graham. Lieberman should be meeting with people like Bob Rubin, Jon Corzine, and the economists and wonks-in-waiting for regime change in the White House. When the Bush initiative is dead and buried -- and only then -- it will be time to roll out a Democratic program. According to my calendar, that should be about when some ambitious and established Democrats might sign up for campaigns against Republican incumbents. A lot of Republican congressmen -- even in the red states -- just returned from the recess desperately worried that Bush is leading them off a cliff in 2006. Fine by me.

I agree. Democrats are perceived as weak. Period. The Rove line is that we don't know what we believe. Right now, it's Lieberman who is flip-flopping on Social Security. Josh Marshall has a post nearly every day putting him in the Fainthearted Faction or taking him out again.

No one's stopping Lieberman from leading on values and national security. Just this week there were two opportunities to stake out distinct Democratic positions:
• Months after the fact, the FCC declared "Saving Private Ryan" to be fit for broadcast. This outrage was a purely Republican production. Something like 20% of the nation couldn't tune in on a national veterans' holiday to honor the sacrifices of WW II.
• Only a few days after Bush's meeting with Putin, the Russians announced they would finish building the Iranian reactor. Delivering vague war threats to Iran on Imus isn't a policy.

If Lieberman had anything to say about these developments, it's not on his web page. Nobody needs him if he's only going to echo the Republicans."

[loose off OJ]

what are we supposed to make of this all? could the DLC be actually ignoring this fact, as others have said. if so it seems that the quest to build a new democratic majority rests on the same deceptive manipulations that we so deplore.

[Dubblblind]

The environment outlined above in Anne's post of March 12, 2005 02:52 PM is not one to inspire confidence in the privatization effort.

[Joe S.]

The thing to understand is that Wittman is not a Democrat. Since he is a patriotic American, he has discovered that he is not a Republican. But he is not a Democrat, although we can often make common cause on economic issues. But on foreign policy and cultural issues, he is not a Democrat. He has too exalted an opinion of American sovereignty on the first, and is too illilberal on the second. His positions aren't crazy, and there are good Democrats who are only somewhat to his left on those issues. But he is not a Democrat, either by history or by inclination.
Wittman likes Lieberman because he senses that Lieberman is not a Democrat. And, unfortunately, I think that Wittman may be correct.

[John Emerson]

I have seen it proposed before that all the Democrats have to do is wait for the Republican Party to be entirely taken over by fanatics, and then move into the moderate Republican space.

That sounds great for moderate Republicans, who have to be pretty miserable by now. I guess that for them the native Democrats who are already there are just a minor obstruction to overcome, with the usual help from turncoats.

Since it's sure to happen no matter what, I suppose I should look up Wittman and see if I could get a few blankets and some glass beads out of him.