Is Lieberman really the bad guy or is he doing his fellow Democrats a favor by being their bad guy?

[David Zephyr]

I've become so jaded, so distrustful of politicians that Joe Lieberman just might be doing the bidding of a lot of Democratic Senators (and possibly even the White House) by willing to be the "bad guy" and take the heat for killing any robust public option or expanding Medicare. He looks publicly like a heel, the corporations all win, and the Democrats get to look angry at it all.

LIEBERMAN IN THE CLOAK ROOM.

LIEBERMAN: "Hey, team. I'm going to help you all save face. I know you are in a pinch. I know you've taken a lot of health-care corporate money yourselves and that you feel beholden to your donors. So, here's the deal. I am going to be the bad guy. You can all look upset and angry and protest to the public how much you wanted a public option, about how you wanted to expand Medicare. You can blame it all on Joe. You know, just mouth off all of your typical bullshit. I'll be the fall guy. You can blame it on me. You'll all owe me later, but yeah...that's how we can kill this thing."

DEMOCRATIC SENATORS: "Joe, baby. We owe you big time. Now we can go out and tell our liberal base that we really, really tried so hard to deliver, but we just couldn't get the votes."

LIEBERMAN: "That's exactly how we do this."

DEMOCRATIC SENATORS: "But, Joe, you know, everyone in the Democratic Party will hate you for this."

LIEBERMAN: "Oh, my!" (prancing around now in front of everyone) Now, that would certainly be a first!" (laughing)

DEMOCRATIC SENATORS: (laughing) "Joe, you are so damned funny. But, in your heart, you know that we all love you, so don't pay any mind to the horrible things we are going to say about you in the next few weeks."

LIEBERMAN: "Oh, my goodness! Just let me guess! Promise me that you won't call me a...Republican (falling over laughing)! Or....a traitor. (loses breath, snorts during his laughing)

DEMOCRATIC SENATORS: "Joe, you are such a devil..." (explosive guffaws)

HARRY REID: "Hey, folks! Quieten down, will ya! I've got Rahm on the phone from the White House. He says everyone over there wants to kiss Joe's ass. Seriously. There are some very grateful people over there. Joe, the phone call is for you. It's on the hot line."

[Kitsune]

1. Probably. A fair few of the Dems are just as corrupt as the Republicans.

And to deny that is to deny reality.

[Ken Burch]

2. And now the closet Lieberman supporters are "unrec'ing.

You, stay classy, DLC'ers.

[David Zephyr]

30. Of course, Ken.

How convenient is is to have one fall guy, isn't it?

I can almost hear the exhaling with relief coming from Washington tonight.

Joe carried their water for them.

The fact that there are Democrats here that believe that Joe Liebeman single handedly brought down one year's debate and health-care for all Americans is scary. The fact that there are some vested in pushing that fairy tale is even worse.

That's why I wrote this thread.

It wasn't just Joe.

[Ken Burch]

32. Of course it wasn't just Joe.

Which still raises the question: who here IS trying to hide this thread?

[David Zephyr]

34. The hit dogs always bark, don't they?

I don't buy this Joe is screwing us all bullshit at the very last moment.

As IndianaGreen wrote in this thread: he's giving the others cover.

As to your very good question as to who wants to bury the thread? As they say in Texas, the hit dog barks the loudest.

[Vinnie From Indy]

3. I think you are exactly right!

I think his announcement was not a surprise to some Democrats in the Senate - it was planned.

[tabatha]

4. You are doing the same thing rwers do -

jump to conclusions, make up stuff without facts.

[ProSense]

6. No kidding. Looking for ways to excuse Lieberman's disgusting ass. n/t

[tabatha]

11. Not at all.

Lieberman is disgusting.
That is obvious, factual, and there for everyone to see.

But to claim any motives by others that are not obvious, factual .....

[David Zephyr]

7. Just the opposite. I asked a question instead of ...

jumping to this conclusion: that little old Joe Lieberman sabotaged health-care for every American all by himself.

That's just not believable.

[ProSense]

12. "little old Joe Lieberman " is

is a first-rate liar

[David Zephyr]

17. Shocking news to me! Of course, he's a liar.

He's the biggest shithead in the Senate. Which is why he is so useful right now to those who hold power.

You can read nearly nine years of my posts here about the sack of shit that Joe Lieberman is.

But, do you honestly beieve that he is doing this all on his own?

[ProSense]

20. Yeah, because what the Dems wanted most is a big shithead instead of a reliable vote.

Good grief. Friggin absurd.

[David Zephyr]

24. You are very gullible if you believe that Joe Lieberman soley is killing this.

You should know better.

[ProSense]

26. "soley"? Sorry, the lame conspiracy theory doesn't excuse Lieberman from

being labeled the dick he is. You seem to want to spread his weak morals around. He's reponsible for his own actions.

[David Zephyr]

27. Maybe the White House would like everyone to believe that little old Joe did it all by himself.

I'm not excusing Lieberman, regardless of how many times you say it.

I'm spreading the blame.

How tidy to put the entire thing on Lieberman.

And how curious it is that you are pushing that line of thought.

[ProSense]

28. "I'm spreading the blame." Oh please.

What you're doing is trying to give Lieberman a pass. Face it.

[David Zephyr]

48. No. You are nervous that Obama is about to sign corporate mandated health-care to all Americans.

And Joe Lieberman is your red herring to divert the blame to him for clearing the public option and the expansion of Medicare out of any bill so Obama can sign it and proclaim "victory". Obama is going to get the bill that he originally wanted to sign. And will sign.

And when he signs the travesty, you will be posting here feverishly how wonderful it is. Take that to the bank.

[ProSense]

49. Instead of wasting time giving Joe cover

sign the petition against his shill wife.

[tabatha]

16. Sorry - I believe that Joe is that bad.

[David Zephyr]

18. He is that bad, and therefore so useful. Isn't he?

.

[tabatha]

21. Useful to whom?

Not the democrats that want real reform - not the progressive caucus in the house.

Wyden on Maddow says we should keep on fighting.

[David Zephyr]

23. To the Democratic Senators who have been squirming on this all year long.

Of course, there are a lot of great Democrats who want the full loaf.

But pinning everything on Lieberman, who is a piece of royal shit, gives credence to the lie that a lot of compromised Democrats would want everyone to believe.

Spread out your anger. There are more traitors in our Party than just Joe Lieberman.

[tabatha]

36. Names?

[David Zephyr]

37. Ben Nelson, Dianne Feinstein, Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, Tim Johnson...

Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln just for starters.

Of course, that won't satisfy you either.

Why are you so invested in singling the blame to Joe Lieberman? Of course, he's a worthless piece of shit. That's not news.

Blaming Joe Lieberman is a convenient tidy excuse so the other Democrats who are all political compromisers can have cover, as IndianaGreen pointed out, too.

Nice and tidy.

Obama will sign a corporate sell out bill and it will be a travesty.

[tabatha]

60. Agreed with those -----

but apparently there are 59 ready to vote - 1 is holding them up.

I read where someone said "59 people are being held up by 1 person".

Also, before on this board I have read suggestions of "go ahead and filibuster" - "let's get it out and see who is holding things up".

So that is what happens, and suddenly instead of seeing who the problem people are, it is now a conspiracy?

[David Zephyr]

65. No conspiracy, just what was once called a "gentleman's agreement".

There never were 59 votes.

Harry Reid knows that the Left is going to really be pissed when the Democrats don't deliver a real health reform act, but instead serve up on silver platter a fascist dictate that every American now will have to purchase from corporations health insurance. That's how the insurance companies will cover "pre-existing health conditions" and "losing one's insurance when changing jobs". It's so good for them that I imagine that there will be a number of Republicans who will come on board.

It's hard to look betrayal in the face. But that's what it is.

The corporations won.

Consider this, IF one Senator can hold up Obama from signing a healthcare bill and it merited the White House compromising to get any bill...

Then, why won't the Democrats who support a robust public option or expansion of Medicare say they won't vote for the bill and see what the White House does?

Is the goal to just get something to Obama to sign with great fanfare? I hope not. I don't think that's what you want either.

What is disconcerting, is more and more the signals from the White House seem to suggest that they want any bill.

[tabatha]

69. Harkin, someone I trust,, says there is enough good in the

bill to pass it.

[Vinnie From Indy]

8. If it walks like a duck...

The fact is that it is completely plausible that Joe Lieberman's latest stunt was planned and done for the benefit of the insurance industry and his fellow Senators that did not want a meaningful bill passed. I would even offer that this is a likely scenario. It is the way politics is done in the US Senate.

[David Zephyr]

13. Exactly...

or we could believe that Joe Lieberman, all by his little self, shut down one year of health-care debate. Hmmm...

[IndianaGreen]

19. It is the Senate Democrats that are dancing to the tune of the RW

[ProSense]

5. "Is Lieberman really the bad guy" He is a traitor and a despicable human being.

I could go on.

[rgbecker]

9. I think the Medicare buy in was just what was needed to wet the appetite.

People saw the possibilities with the Medicare buy in. Now when they are cut loose and can't find a policy for less than $1200/mo. they'll be wishing for the option. Lieberman will be voted out, as will several of the party of noes, and the Medicare buy in will be ready to go on its own to be added to the program.

Hey, just trying to be optimistic!

[David Zephyr]

25. Unfortunately, Joe can't be voted out.. He has his Senate seat until 2012.

That's another reason he can be the fall guy, the bad guy.

[DrToast]

10. It makes me wonder if AHIP didn' thave a deal with the White House like Pharma did.*

*

[IndianaGreen]

14. He is providing cover to all the other corporate whores in the Senate

Here is the letter I got from Evan Bayh this past summer about health care:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=151x7123

Most people here have invested a great deal of personal time, not to mention money, fighting for peace and social justice (which includes the notion of universal health care). It is understandable that they are angry and feeling betrayed at the way their views have consistently been ignored or ridiculed by the political elites in this country.

[David Zephyr]

22. Thank you. "He is providing cover". That's exactly what he is doing.

And there are a lot of grateful Democrats in the Senate for him taking them off the hook.

[Blasphemer]

41. Certainly seems that way... nt

[dkf]

15. Lieberman is bought and paid for.

He is OWNED. The donations are pathetic compared to the money he will make for them. The BEST INVESTMENT they ever made. Of course he has sold his soul to the devil.

[David Zephyr]

51. Yes. And he's the one that will be the bad guy for them.

It costs him nothing. His seat is safe until 2012.

Obama is going to sign a corporation sponsored bill that manadates every American buy insurance fromt these crooks. What a farce this all was.

One wasted fucking year while Americans are living in their cars with their kids and going hungry.

[PurityOfEssence]

29. Quisling Joe is precisely what he seems

He's a moralist, narcissistic mixed-bag. Although he's had a good record on many causes dear to the left, he has blinkers when it comes to the insurance industry, and this is not new.

Like many of us, he crossed my radar the first time when he was wagging his prissy little finger at Bill Clinton over his infidelity and prevaricating testimony; it was a time for party solidarity that was used for personal gain. Gore was a fool to bring him on the ticket, and it was an obvious attempt to distance himself from Bill Clinton's immorality and once again run to the center and suck up to the reactionaries. (I like Gore, but he deserves a LOT of the blame for 2000.) Lieberman's conduct during that episode was nothing short of chickenshit opportunism, and the virtue of any true moral qualms he may have had with Bill Clinton were far outweighed by his naked, moralizing grandstanding.

Now he's caught in a stagy, self-indulgent posturing as some saintly and incorruptible maverick, and it's nauseating beyond belief.

Lieberman is playing cheap theatrics with our very lives.

[David Zephyr]

31. And Joe's having the time of his life now, center stage...

and doing the bidding of a lot of other whores who will owe him for a long time for letting them off the hook.

[PurityOfEssence]

57. Hmmm...

Whether intentional or not, that's definitely going to be the part of the dynamic.

I'm just depressed, aren't you? I'd like to say I'm noble enough and energetic enough to be really angry about all this, but it's just sucking the energy out of me like sitting on an aluminum bleacher seat on a cold night at a bad show. We're not going to die with either a bang OR a whimper; it's going to be more of a feckless sigh, like a beached jellyfish.

What worries me more than anything is the reaction of the truly inspired who believed in this movement, and are now finding out that it's not "new" politics, but the oldest of the old kind of politics.

This showboating little putz just reminds one of what scurrilous traits exist in the human creature, and that's not a particularly constructive thought for a liberal to have.

[David Zephyr]

71. That is the frame of it all.

Yes, it is depressing.

And I am also concerned about what you point to: "the reaction of the truly inspired who believed in this movement, and are now finding out that it's not "new" politics, but the oldest of the old kind of politics."

When Obama signs this corporate mandate into federal law, there will be Democrats who saw it coming and who will not be smug, but saddened by it all, there will be those who catch on that they were betrayed and who will be hurt and angry, there will be those who will cheer lead whatever happens as a great "victory" no matter what he signs, and there will be those who are in a fog.

This is turning out to be such a great deal for the corporations that I can see some Republicans joining in to vote for it, too.

It will be easy for the insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions and make insurance transferable because they will have the entire nation as their slave customers by fiat.

Your bleacher analogy is a good one. It is cold sitting here on it.

[QC]

58. [phone]

[grassfed]

33. the most hateful face on the planet.

[jonnyblitz]

35. k & r.

nice picture! :o j/k :hi:

[David Zephyr]

38. thanks, johnny!

i'm asking fellow DU'er to think.

we were conned.

i thought the pic fit well with the post.

liebermouse is having the time of his life right now having nervous democrats kissing his ass in gratitude.

:hi:

[Umbral]

39. Even if he's doing the bidding of others, he's still a bad guy. And not just bad - The Worst! nt

[David Zephyr]

40. I agree. I've got nearly nine years posted at the DU against this sack of shit.

He's rotten. He loves this sort of shit.

He's not alone in sinking it. But he's willing to be the bad guy to give cover to the nervous Democrats who won't vote for either expansion of Medicare or a robust public option.

Sadly, I think the White House is grateful to Lieberman for being the fall guy.

[HillGal]

42. I agree, you have Lincoln wafflin, McCaskill waffling, Nelson, Bayh, and no doubt

Landrieu is waffling, Lieberman may not be so much covering for them, but his coming out against this is giving them cover to say no.

[David Zephyr]

44. Welcome to the DU, HillGal.

:hi:

[HillGal]

45. Thanks! NT

[Jennicut]

43. I am sure there are so called moderates hiding behind him but he is doing this

to get reelected in CT. He hopes to get the money from insurance companies here and is completing his transition to a conservative. I mean, he got my conservative parents to vote for him but I wouldn't touch him with a 10 foot pole. Liberal and moderate Dems here in CT can't stand him. I wish he would just become a Rethug but the Dem leadership is so desperate for another vote they won't push him.

[mcablue]

56. Rockefeller comes to mind

I knew he was no liberal.

[David Zephyr]

68. Well, he certainly began singing a new song yesterday, didn't he?

Tom Harkin, too.

Imagine that.

[Zodiak]

70. I wondered about him

After tracking Rockefeller's votes for a number of years, it really surprised me that he was deemed a "liberal" in the health care fight. I was grateful to have him, but still wary because I know he had a long history of siding with the bug guy. He votes with liberal positions about as much as the average DLCer, even though he is not one himself.

[Zynx]

46. Most things are usually just how they appear.

I think Lieberman is peeing in the punchbowl because he has a grudge against the party.

[burning rain]

47. I agree that Lieberman is providing corporatist Dems with welcome cover.

But I think it's as likely that the role comes naturally to him, as that there's a secret agenda that Democratic senators discuss with Lieberman. That would put them at risk of extremely damaging leaks. You don't need a conspiracy, though of course I can't prove there isn't one.

[David Zephyr]

50. He is providing them and the White House with cover.

It's not a conspiracy. It's an agreement. All tidy.

Corporate mandated health-care that all Americans must purchase by fiat will be signed into law by President Obama and which many sheep within the Democratic Party will call a "victory".

[burning rain]

52. I don't think any stated agreement, or even one negotiated through intermediaries, is necessary.

It works out the same either way. I do agree that Lieberman also provides the White House with welcome cover. But I suspect that the adminstration and congressional Democrats will find that covertly pandering to corporate interests while keeping their base voters on board, is a circle that can't be squared.

[Vinnie From Indy]

55. I hope you are right!

I don't think that all the people will be fooled!

[burning rain]

59. I think you can pretty much count on it, Vinnie.

It will be damn hard to sell the idea that with 60 freakin' members of the Senate Democratic caucus, we can't reasonably expect sweeping change. The refusal to use reconciliation or end the 60 vote rule in favor of simple majority would itself stink to high heaven, alienating Democratic base voters by showing that there aren't 51 of 60 caucus members determined to pass groundbreaking legislation by all honorable and legal means.

Like the name Vinnie, by the way. Sounds old-school Italian-American. :-)

[dave29]

53. I think your fantasy would work better if Obama was the bad guy, since he seems to have convinced so

many he is.

So sad.

[slipslidingaway]

54. knr nt

[dionysus]

61. you really think they'd work in cahoots with leiberman to get themselves kicked out of office?

that's taking jaded to a whole new level.

[David Zephyr]

66. There's no conspiracy. This is how they do business. How they swap votes. How they cover each other.

It's Senatorial politics.

It's done with a wink and a nod.

You might keep in mind that the other side of the coin of being jaded is being naive.

Read the names of the Senators I listed above (there are more) and ask yourself if you believe they would ever vote for a true public option or the expansion of Medicare?

Why is the White House so eager to compromise.

What a deal for the insurance corporations this will be.

Of course they will now cover pre-existing conditions and let healthcare be transferable from job to job or if you lose your job. Because every American will now be their customer.

This will be so good that there will be Republicans joining in to vote for it.

A real first for the American people. A federal fiat that you buy a corporation's product.

[ChiciB1]

62. PUL-LEEEZZZZEEEE!!! Whatever!!!! n/t

[Peacetrain]

63. Oh for the love of GOD.. You make the stuff up in your head..and then present it as fact?

Geez throwing all the Democrats under the train in one fell swoop..

[Armstead]

64. With exceptions you may be onto something

I don't think they are all in that category. Some really have fought hard for the people.

But I can envision a conversation like that with some Democratic senators and the WH.

[David Zephyr]

67. They are not all in that category.

I just want some here to think and to stop buying into the convenient cover of "it's all Joe Lieberman's fault".

We have a lot of great Democrats in both Houses who could say they will vote against any bill that does not have a robust public option. Would the White House then compromise so willingly with them to get a bill to sign? The answer is no.

Because this Healthcare Act will be such a gold mine to the insurance corporations that it will be easy for them to cover pre-existing conditions. Such a gold-mine that there would be enough Republicans ready to vote for it to offset any Democrats who defected. "Bipartisanship" and Obama takes out his pen and signs the bill.

And, sadly, we now see even great Democrats like Tom Harkin saying they will vote for this travesty.

Acknowledgment of betrayal is hard to swallow. It always is.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

72. I don't think Traitor Joe LIEberman is running in 2012, so your "fall guy" theory

may be spot-on! :puke::puke:

But, it's not ALL Democrats; the corporatists are destroying the party, period!! They destroyed it and allowed the Repukes to take it over in 1994. It's been downhill every since.