Leahy Becomes First Senator To Demand Lieberman's Ouster From Homeland Security Committee

[cali]

By Greg Sargent - November 14, 2008, 1:51PM

We now have our first Dem Senator who has come on the record and called for Joe Lieberman to be booted from his plum spot on the Homeland Security committee.

In an interview with Vermont Public Radio today, Senator Patrick Leahy left no doubt whatsoever: He believes Lieberman should be given the push.

"Every Senator will have to vote the way he or she believes they should," Leahy said, in a reference to the upcoming vote on Lieberman's fate in the Dem caucus next week. "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."

<snip>

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/leahy_calls_on_lieberman_to_be.php

[Hokie]

1. Good, I respect Pat even more now - NT

[City Lights]

2. ...

:applause: :toast:

Recommended.

[olkaz]

3. good work!

Hope more come out now.

[1776Forever]

4. Tell it like it is Patrick!

:yourock:

[SuperTrouper]

5. Senator Leahy is correct. Boot Mata Lieber-Hari out of his committee assignments

[Kokonoe]

6. Lieberman is from the seed of a turd blossom.

Do we clean up the turds, or pick the flowers.
So far I like picking the flowers.

[crickets]

7. Finally, some common sense regarding Lieberman.

Thank you, Mr. Leahy. It's ridiculous to leave the man in that chair, not only because of what he has done, but because of what he has not done.

Lieberman Has No Plans To Investigate Blackwater, Corrupt Iraq Contractors
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/10/10/lieberman-has-no-plans-to_n_67825.html

Schumer and Durbin Want Lieberman Stripped of Homeland Security Chair
http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/11/schumer-and-durbin-want-lieberman-stripped-of-homeland-security-chair/

No-bid contracts kept from public scrutiny in the name of "national security" have built a department of unprecedented waste and theft, all rubber stamped and protected from Senate investigation by Joe Lieberman's chairmanship. And what has it gotten us? Nothing. Basically, the Department of Homeland Security became just another front for the military industrial complex to feed off American taxpayers while neocons like Lieberman screamed "terror terror terror, just trust us."

Joe Is Not With Us On Homeland Security, Either
http://crooksandliars.com/node/24040/print

Think Progress has a pretty thorough rundown on just how many ways Joe is not with us when it counts: on taxes, Social Security, torture, health care, energy ... the list is long and damning. But the ultimate reason to remove Lieberman as chair of Homeland Security is that his record as chair of that committee has been abjectly conservative, partisan, and in the end a menace to Americans' civil rights: In other words, Lieberman is antithetical to the progressive mandate Democrats have just been handed. Think Progress has some of the lowlights...

Perhaps the most egregious instance of Lieberman's reactionary agenda in Homeland Security, though, has been the way he has pushed Jane Harman's misbegotten "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007". Lieberman has managed to twist it into a legal tool for harassing American Muslims while simultaneously ignoring the ongoing, and very real, threat of right-wing domestic terrorism. Considering that the FBI's own terrorism experts now are increasingly concerned about the threat of far-right-wing domestic terrorism rising in the context of an Obama presidency, this is a blind spot that will be simply unacceptable in a Homeland Security Committee chair -- especially one who already has a track record of ignoring inconvenient issues that properly bear congressional inquiry. America can't afford to have Joe Lieberman chairing its Homeland Security Committee any longer. That, and not simple revenge for his disloyalty, is the reason Democrats need to think long and hard before letting those bygones be.

The Homeland Security Chair should be given to a Democrat, not a turncoat. More importantly, the chair should be given to someone who will actually perform the duties incumbent upon the holder of that seat. Period.

[olkaz]

8. nice summary

Cannot wait until he is gone.

[crickets]

9. Thanks. You and me both. *fingers crossed* -nt

[Diamonique]

10. Good for him!

I sent letters to my senators. I just had to let them know how I felt about this.