The ruling Senate Democrats, now that they no longer need Joe Lieberman's participation in their caucus in order to maintain a majority, are considering stripping him of his chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. I normally don't care a whit about this kind of inside-politics stuff -- I didn't even know he was the chairman of this committee, nor that the committee even existed until this came up -- but for some reason, maybe obsessive election and post-election political blog reading, this has gotten my interest.
Steve Benen theorizes that this goes beyond Lieberman trying to retain power and prestige, and beyond the Democrats trying to punish him for backing McCain and attacking Obama.
As chairman of this committee for the last two years, Lieberman decided not to pursue any accusations of wrongdoing against the Bush administration. Lieberman's House counterpart -- Rep. Henry Waxman's Oversight Committee -- was a vigilant watchdog, holding hearings, issuing subpoenas, and launching multiple investigations. Lieberman preferred to let his committee do no real work at all. It was arguably the most pathetic display of this Congress.
And yet, now Lieberman acts as if keeping this chairmanship is the single most important part of his public life. Why would he be so desperate to keep the gavel of a committee he hasn't used? I'll let you in on a secret: he wants to start using the power of this committee against Obama.
Lieberman didn't want to hold Bush accountable, but he seems exceedingly anxious to keep the committee that would go after Obama with a vengeance, effectively becoming a Waxman-like figure -- holding hearings, issuing subpoenas, and launching investigations against the Democratic president.
Now, Lieberman has used a nice little rhetorical flourish to defend his position. He says that it would be a "partisan" act to strip him of his chairmanship because of his campaigning against Obama and the Democratic party.
I decided in that election that partisanship should take a back seat to doing what I believed was best for our country. But the election is over, and I completely agree with President-elect Obama that we must now unite to get the economy going again and keep the American people safe.
But here's the rhetorical response: it was only for partisan reasons that he is Chairman of that committee in the first place. He's an Indpendent who cut a deal with the Democrats: he caucused with them to give them a majority, and in exchange they gave him certain Democratic seniority status. A truly non-partisan look at this position would be that we're going to forget all that old caucus horse-trading that was done for partisan advantage, and install the person who we think will do the best job keeping America safe. You're welcome to throw your hat in the ring, Senator Lieberman.
As for his threat to join the Republican caucus, I've always liked Major League Baseball's Sandy Alderson's response in 1999 to the umpire's union threat to have mass resignations: "This is either a threat to be ignored or an offer to be accepted."
