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Giving Lieberman the Pineapple
Reid's Lieberman policy appears to be to do everything he can to prevent Lieberman being able to claim that he has been unfairly treated. The lobbying activities of Clinton and Obama appear to be designed to the same end.
The critical thing here is not so much to keep Lieberman in the caucus as to force him to accept that his actions deserved punishment. Kicking him out of the caucus entirely would allow him to play his pathetic little center-of-attention martyr act. Letting him stay in the caucus but taking away everything gives him the opportunity to walk away in distain and claim a moral victory.
Offering Lieberman the Veterans affairs committee is an interesting choice. The GOP cannot offer Lieberman anything remotely comparable in status or influence even if they wanted to, but to accept it requires Lieberman to accept a significant demotion and he cannot do that without accepting that what he did was wrong.
Lieberman could just walk away from the insult. But that makes him look like a complete dork in everyone's eyes and particularly so with Clinton and Obama allegedly arguing his case. If he walks away from this he is clearly an irrational fool who could not be argued with.
It is a very clever little trap that only works because Lieberman is so wrapped up in his sanctimonious little ego. He can try to bluster but he knows that Reid holds all the cards here. If Joe tries to drag it out too long, the replacement chair for Homeland Security will be announced and so will the chair for Vets. At that point any leverage he might have had is gone for good and there is no reason for the GOP to offer him diddly either. In fact their best strategy would probably be to keep Joe dangling on and on.
Lieberman's only real card is to threaten to resign and effectively give his seat to the GOP. But that is a trick he can only play once and whoever replaced him would likely be gone in 2010.
Bottom line is that at this point the only thing Lieberman is achieving is to provide a useful distraction from whatever else the GOP might want to do.
The critical thing here is not so much to keep Lieberman in the caucus as to force him to accept that his actions deserved punishment. Kicking him out of the caucus entirely would allow him to play his pathetic little center-of-attention martyr act. Letting him stay in the caucus but taking away everything gives him the opportunity to walk away in distain and claim a moral victory.
Offering Lieberman the Veterans affairs committee is an interesting choice. The GOP cannot offer Lieberman anything remotely comparable in status or influence even if they wanted to, but to accept it requires Lieberman to accept a significant demotion and he cannot do that without accepting that what he did was wrong.
Lieberman could just walk away from the insult. But that makes him look like a complete dork in everyone's eyes and particularly so with Clinton and Obama allegedly arguing his case. If he walks away from this he is clearly an irrational fool who could not be argued with.
It is a very clever little trap that only works because Lieberman is so wrapped up in his sanctimonious little ego. He can try to bluster but he knows that Reid holds all the cards here. If Joe tries to drag it out too long, the replacement chair for Homeland Security will be announced and so will the chair for Vets. At that point any leverage he might have had is gone for good and there is no reason for the GOP to offer him diddly either. In fact their best strategy would probably be to keep Joe dangling on and on.
Lieberman's only real card is to threaten to resign and effectively give his seat to the GOP. But that is a trick he can only play once and whoever replaced him would likely be gone in 2010.
Bottom line is that at this point the only thing Lieberman is achieving is to provide a useful distraction from whatever else the GOP might want to do.
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2012.
And I know where I'd like them to put that pineapple...
November 10, 2008 11:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
The obvious solution here is to have President Obama appoint Lieberman as Ambassador to Liechtenstein.
November 11, 2008 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink