Why Lieberman knows he won't be punished for ruining HCR

[Waiting For Everyman]

Ohhh. Now it makes sense - why he's arrogant enough to pull this move, and knows he'll get away with it without paying a price for it. But nowhere else have I seen this mentioned... It's climate change that is protecting him:

The Democratic Strategist

Health Reform Options Narrow

...

Anyone cruising the news or blog sites yesterday was treated to an orgy of recriminations aimed at Lieberman, at his flip-flopping on the Medicare buy-in issue, and at the poor logic of his overall position, accompanied by considerable psychotherapeutic speculation on the motives for his destructive behavior.

But the fact remains that there are only 58 reasonably assured votes for cloture on the recently negotiated Team of Ten "deal" for health care reform. Assuming Ben Nelson can be brought aboard without highly divisive concessions on the abortion issue, that still leaves one vote to be secured from a universe of just three senators: Lieberman, Snowe and Collins. So what are the options left to the White House and the Democratic congressional leadership?

...

(3) Threaten Lieberman with loss of his seniority unless he votes for cloture. Without question, it was a major mistake for the Democratic Caucus to allow Lieberman to maintain his seniority after the 2008 elections without an ironclad pledge that he would support the Caucus on all procedural votes, including cloture votes. He had just campaigned for the other party's presidential candidate. His vote was no longer needed for Democratic control of the Senate, and his contribution to a 60-vote Senate was largely irrelevant without a pledge to support the party on cloture votes. Now it's not clear he is amenable to any sort of threats or inducements that don't involve substantive concessions on health care reform. Moreover, at present he is a key player for the administration and congressional Democrats on climate change legislation, which the Senate is due to take up as soon as health reform is resolved. An ultimate score-settling with Lieberman is now a major psychological necessity for a lot of Democrats, but it's unlikely it would do any good on health care reform, and there could be unpleasant repercussions on climate change and perhaps other issues.

...

http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/strategist/2009/12/health_reform_options_narrow_2.php

________________

Wow. That is just so nasty and cynical of him. I bet he thinks he's really slick. But why aren't any of the news sources including this simple fact in their reporting? (If they have, I haven't heard/seen it brought up.) Why so quiet about it?

[Ken Burch]

1. Which begs the question:

What will Joe do to the Climate Change bill?

We can't assume he'll let it go at taking just ONE dump on the Dems.

[Waiting For Everyman]

5. And the hits just keep on comin', don't they

Just when you think it can't get any worse.

So the coming year is going to be just as stressful as this is now. This New Year's Eve, I won't even kid myself hoping that next year will be better.

Fact remains, something has to be done about that jerk.

[bluestateguy]

2. He's also going to be the point man on gays in the military next year

which will be in the defense bill for 2011.

:puke:

[cliffordu]

3. He reminds me of Berlusconi for some reason. Dunno why.

:shrug:

[classysassy]

4. Tell Joe

that he has to go.

[laughingliberal]

6. Failing to find a solution to Joe on this will insure his supreme dictatorship for the next several

years. We must do something. Want to know if he'll support Cap and Trade. Check his contributions from Goldman Sachs. If he's gotten a lot of money from them, he'll vote for Cap and Trade.