For god's sake, will someone please strip this man of his committee chairmanships? Please?
Friday, Lieberman said he will attend the Republican National Convention this summer, "if Senator McCain thinks it will be helpful to be there in some capacity." [...]
"I am not going to attend the Democratic Convention for obvious reasons," Lieberman said.
He isn't a Democrat. Get rid of him.
UPDATE: Context from Washington Independent:
He is the chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which is responsible for government oversight and reform. The anonymity of his oversight role is surprising given the regular news made and scandals uncovered by the counterpart House oversight committee, Henry A. Waxman (Calif.).
But the way Lieberman runs his committee demonstrates that he is the anti-Waxman. Since January 2007, after six years of watching the GOP Congress support President George W. Bush, Waxman has held strongly partisan hearings and investigations into the administration. Lieberman, however, has stayed out out of the headlines--and, for the most part, out of the administration's hair."It is [Lieberman's] general political outlook," said Norman Ornstein, a political scientist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "His inclination would not be to go after the Bush administration."
Lieberman has garnered some praise for the first part of his committee's responsibilities--holding hearings on management problems within the Dept. of Homeland Security and the overall federal workforce. But, as the chairman, he controls the agenda, and he has held more hearings on combating Islamic extremism than any other issue. Such subject dovetails with both his passionately hawkish, pro-Israeli viewpoint and White House policy...
Many critics sounded most aghast when talking about Lieberman's refusal to investigate Blackwater. Last September, the private security company's guards opened fire in an Iraqi public square, allegedly killing at least 17 Iraqis. Waxman was all over the grisly incident, bringing in Blackwater CEO Erik Prince and releasing a report chronicling other instances where Blackwater employees killed Iraqis without punishment.
Lieberman, meanwhile, said at the time, "You've got to set your own priorities and it was clear to me that other committees were going to pick this up." But, in fact, Senate Democrats saw the need to set up a special wartime contracting commission after the Blackwater shootings. The bill had 28 sponsors and co-sponsors. Lieberman wasn't one of them...
Lieberman's work with Republicans is perhaps ultimately defined by his allegiance to neoconservative Middle East policy, not working to improve the federal bureaucracy. That political destiny means his friends in the Senate are not Democrats, but Republicans. like McCain, who may be moderate in other areas but define themselves by vowing to continue the Iraq war.
It also lays bare another crucial difference between Lieberman and Waxman--the length of their chairmanship. Waxman has been the House Democrats' oversight czar since the 1980's and, considering the party congressional majority, he shows no signs of leaving.
Lieberman, however, probably won't have his chairmanship after the election. With more Democratic senators expected win in November, it is unlikely that the party will need his help to control the Senate. "Lieberman's not dumb," said Dautrich. "He knows his days are numbered."
So while his stumping around the world with McCain is based on their shared beliefs, it also may be a matter of political survival. "If McCain becomes president, certainly one of the major Cabinet positions could be offered to Lieberman," Dautrich said. "He would probably be quick to take it."
And if a Democrat wins the White House - when a Democrat wins the White House - Lieberman should become one of the most ignored members of the minority party in the US Senate.
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