Letters to the Editor
Amity
Published Letters: 1110 Editor's Choice: 106
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Making the argument
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If someone wants to defend these Democrats' complicit behavior (on the craven ground that what they did was understandable because it was politically wise), then they should make that argument.
Sure, okay. Try this out. Senate Democrats go hard after the Bush regime — after the war, after the corruption of intelligence and military decision-making, after profiteering, any or all of the above — and Lieberman immediately pulls the plug on their coalition. In a few hours, with a flick of his wrist, the independent gentleman from Connecticut ends any chance of a Democratic agenda in the Senate for at least another year.
It's in no way clear that Lieberman's stick is the only thing cowing the Democratic leadership — in fact it seems implausible that it is. But until the Democrats have an actual majority in the Senate, instead of this minoriry-coalition thing, any bold stance on national security will definitely cost them control — of committees, of investigations, of Senate business, of nominations, everything.
It may be that the chance to implement part of their agenda isn't worth having to kowtow to the tyranny of parliamentary coalition, and that Senate Democrats should be willing to go out in a blaze of glory and be permanently sidelined for the rest of the current term. It may be that the Democratic leadership is perfectly happy with the current state of affairs and Lieberman doesn't actually have to make any threats. But the man made it back to Washington on one issue — the popularity of his hawkish stand on the Middle East — and he's made it clear that if the chips are down he just does not give a rat's behind about anything else. It's not hard to do the math.
Look at it another way — the Democrats' 2006 campaign failed in the Senate. They lost. By making a deal with the devil on national security, they managed to snatch a measure of victory from the jaws of defeat. The fact that some of them might be perfectly happy with the devil in question notwithstanding, let's turn Glenn Greenwald's comment around: if anyone believes that it would be better for the Democrats to cede power completely in exchange for a bold but fruitless stance on the war, let them make that argument.
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thomasc on control of the Senate
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Control of the Senate is established by resolution at the beginning of each new Senate.
This can't be right. Jim Jeffords shifted control of the Senate from the Republicans to the Democrats on the day he left the GOP. Why would it be any different with Lieberman? Indeed, Lieberman wouldn't even need to leave — just decide one day to caucus differently.
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Jim White on the Bob Graham mystery
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Now the timeline gets very interesting. Graham pushed for an NIE in September, 2002 and then after the 2002 election, he was replaced on the Senate Intelligence Committee in January, 2003 by Rockefeller.
Nice digging into Graham's brief career as Intelligence chair in the Senate. It's good to know what the Democrats were actually up to. However, it's worth pointing out one small missing detail — between 2002 and 2003 the Democrats also lost control of the Senate. Describing Rockefeller as Graham's successor isn't quite correct — in terms of who was in charge of the committee, Graham was replaced by a Republican (Pat Roberts), not by Jay Rockefeller.
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Glenn Greenwald on Senate control
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... Lieberman's defection would NOT result in a change of control in the Senate. Here's is a good discussion of that argument - I don't know if this is true or not, but I've heard it in many reliable places -
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/18/211259/764
The Kos link is very useful — in particular it explains how Senate rules changed between the Jeffords incident and now. Unfortunately it still leaves a bunch of questions unanswered. For one, the article asserts that Republicans number 1 fewer on all committees than Democrats — but Lieberman sits on many committees, and in fact chairs (what else?) Homeland Security and Government Affairs. So by this reading, if Lieberman switches then
a) he tips the balance in favor of his new party on all the committees on which he sits, which may or may not be a big deal by itself if the chairs stay the same but
b) he does take Homeland Security with him, and
c) because of the very same Senate resolutions cited in the Kos post, Reid can't do anything to preempt such a development because he's effectively locked into the structure as written, plus
c) even if the committees remain Democrat-run they have to contend with a Senate plenary that's now controlled by Cheney and McConnell, who would have final say over procedural decisions — I'm no parliamentary expert, but I do know that's a huge deal. It might even prevent anything from ever coming to a vote.
If I'm missing something, by all means someone correct me, but assuming that the Kos article is accurate as stated it doesn't appear to offer any reassurance at all! In fact, quite the opposite.