Joe Lieberman represents the "old politics" Obama claims to disavow. Lieberman has done everything he can to exact revenge on a Democratic party whose leaders supported the man who was the Democratic nominee in the Connecticut senate race. Lieberman is the vindictive one. I refuse to believe that he only campaigned for McCain because McCain is his friend. I think that Lieberman does believe in the blood thirsty Republican way: endless war, making war on anyone who does not bend over for the US, and paranoid foreign policy. It is the way he campaigned that exposes him as a man of the "old politics." A lot of Lieberman's stump speeches were not based on McCain's merits, but on Republican lies about Obama. He went on Sunday shows to fan the flames of the "Obama's a Marxist" fire. He exploited religious and racial divisions between blacks and Jews. He did nothing to quell the "Obama's a Muslim" rumor. Blacks and Jews have long since been on opposite sides since the Civil Rights era. Lieberman went to Florida to pimp the idea that a black president would be anti-Israel because blacks are anti-Semites. Joe Lieberman did this to punish the Democrats for not defying the will of Democratic voters in Connecticut. He was banking on a big position in a McCain administration and was willing to engage in gutter politics to get it. Why would Obama want to reward Lieberman, an old style politician of the worst sort, want to reward him by letting him keep his committee chairmanship? Doesn't Obama want to rid our government of such people?

I never believed the myth that Obama is a new type of politician who is above the fray. He got into office by way of cynicism and he will govern that way. Keeping Lieberman on will allow him to continue Bush policies he claims to repudiate by letting Lieberman be his proxy all while denouncing it. Lieberman has used the mission of the Homeland Security Committee to justify clouding government transparency. He blocked investigations into the handling of Katrina under the guise of homeland security. He blocked investigations into allegations of torture and other abuses of power by the Bush administration because it would compromise homeland security. Obama said that he was against the war in Iraq (and ran his campaign on having the wisdom and foresight to oppose invading Iraq), but voted to continue funding it. Obama denounced the erosion of civil liberties under Bush, but voted for FISA. Obama campaigned against Bush expanding the power of the executive branch. But, with Lieberman heading the Homeland Security Committee, he can claim that he cannot interfere with the role of the Senate when Lieberman uses his chair to do the things Obama says he deplores. Obama's real agenda, which is unpalatable to the people who voted for him, can go forth by way of Lieberman, can go forward while Obama can avoid blame.

What I find most troubling is that Lieberman is allowed to continue heading such a powerful committee with access to sensitive state secrets when he is clearly too invested in the well being of Israel. Lieberman is a representative for the Israeli government has been quite open about how he feels the US should subordinate the interests of our country, our image abroad, and our safety by continuing to ride shotgun on whatever acts of aggression Israel want to commit against other countries. Lieberman wants to attack Iran and occupy it because he perceives this as being in the best interest of Israel. Lieberman was the biggest cheerleader for attacking and invading Iraq because Iraq was just as belligerent to Israel as Israel was belligerent to Iraq. Obama wants to keep a man in a position of power who supported and still supports a war he says has been a disaster for our nation? Lieberman wants us to continue arming Israel to the teeth. Lieberman wants us to continue giving Israel unwavering support for anything it does thereby giving disincentives for Israel to meaningfully participate in a peace process. Lieberman wants to continue to allow Israel to remain an apartheid state and defy international law. His very presence on the HSC, let alone chairmanship of it, is provocative and undermines efforts towards the US repairing our image abroad.

Obama and the Democratic senators want to keep Lieberman so that they do not have to confront the truth that they are not so nearly opposed to the Bush way as they say they are. Lieberman can be their hatchet man make phony cries of opposition. What's more, keeping Lieberman makes it hard for him to go back to Florida to stir up rumors that Democrats are anti-Israel lefties. Keeping Lieberman also helps keeping the AIPAC dollars coming. So much for the politics of change, freedom from undue influence from lobbyists, and a renewal of US prestige abroad.