God How I Despise Him...

[WillyT]

Lieberman Pushes Shifts on Overhaul
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: December 14, 2009

<snip>

WASHINGTON — Just the thought of Joseph I. Lieberman makes some Democrats want to spit nails these days. But Mr. Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, is not the least troubled by his status as Capitol Hill’s master infuriator.

In fact, he could not be happier. He is right where he wants to be — at the center of the political aisle, the center of the Democrats’ efforts to win 60 votes for their sweeping health care legislation. In short, he is at the center of everything and he loves it.

“My wife said to me, ‘Why do you always end up being the point person here?’ ” he said, flashing a broad grin in an interview on Monday.

The day before, Mr. Lieberman threatened on national television to join the Republicans in blocking the health care bill, President Obama’s chief domestic initiative. Just hours later, he said, he left the office of the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, more certain than ever that he held all the cards.

“Harry said, ‘We will do what we can do to secure this,’ ” Mr. Lieberman recalled. “He said, ‘I have got some work to do with other members of the caucus.’ But he said, ‘My own feeling is we need you to get to 60 and so I am going to do my best.’ ”

Many Democrats say they have given up trying to divine the motivations of Mr. Lieberman. Some have suggested he is catering to insurance industry interests back home. Others say he realizes that he cannot win re-election in 2012 without appealing to Republicans and independents and that he could well be planning to switch parties.

Mr. Lieberman says he favors the essential elements of the health care legislation but fears that expanding government insurance programs would compound the federal debt.

Mr. Lieberman, who lost a Democratic primary in 2006, won re-election as an independent and campaigned against Mr. Obama last year, said he felt “liberated” from party loyalty. Perhaps nothing confounds Mr. Reid and Senate Democrats more.

Back in Connecticut, the anger is raw.

“If you think you are sick of Joe Lieberman now,” Jim Shea, a columnist in The Hartford Courant, wrote Monday, “just wait until you get sick.” Liberal bloggers have attacked him as “a joke” and worse.

Mr. Lieberman’s threat to block the bill blew up a proposed deal to bring together the Democratic caucus that Mr. Reid had hailed as a breakthrough. At the Capitol Monday night, Democratic senators emerged from a closed-door meeting to say they were likely to bow to Mr. Leiberman’s demands, which include dropping a proposed government-run health insurance plan and scrapping a proposal to let people buy into Medicare beginning at age 55. Senate Democrats said they hoped to push for a final vote on the legislation perhaps as soon as this weekend.

Mr. Obama invited the caucus to the White House on Tuesday for more talks.

Democratic leaders insist that they were caught off-guard on Sunday morning by Mr. Lieberman’s threat to block the bill and accused him of acting in bad faith. The comments on television sent White House officials, including the chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, scrambling to the Capitol for a meeting to pinpoint where he stood.

Democratic leaders noted that Mr. Lieberman on numerous occasions had voiced support for the Medicare buy-in proposal that he now insists must be dropped. It was a core component of a health care proposal that he championed as Al Gore’s running mate in the 2000 presidential race, and three months ago he voiced support for the same concept.

“What I was proposing was that they have an option to buy into Medicare early,” Mr. Lieberman says on a video distributed by Democrats on Monday. In the interview, he did not dispute that he once supported the idea but said he had not recalled that he had done so, or the context, until Mr. Reid’s office confronted him about it.


<snip>

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/health/policy/15lieberman.html

I cannot believe how much I despise him.

:mad:

[WillyT]

1. Kick !!!

:kick:

[unabelladonna]

2. it's like he's daring me

to hate him.

[HughMoran]

3. There must be a way to destroy this Benedict Arnold

He's quickly becoming the most hated man in American.