this guy

5 Reasons Why Making Sen. Joe Lieberman Obama’s DADT Pointman Is Really, Really Terrible Idea

Connecticut’s infallible (oh how we kid) Sen. Joe Lieberman will become the White House’s Senate pointman on leading the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal, just as we expected back in October. With the White House’s approval, it will be Lieberman who, next week, is expected to introduce a (standalone?) DADT repeal bill. Is this a stupid idea or what?

We won’t pretend to know more about the inner workings of Washington than the Obama administration. That said, giving Lieberman the go-ahead to rule the DADT repeal roost is, on its face, a bad move for anyone hoping to see DADT killed.

Democrats can’t stand the guy. Sure, he might’ve been a vice presidential candidate at one point, but this D-bag of a senator has lost the respect of the party he was once a senior member of. He does shit like threaten Democrats with joining a Republican filibuster against health care reform. And defend John McCain. John McCain! You know how big of a headache that legislation was (and is) for Democrats? Yeah, they’re really going to love working with This Guy on another touchy subject.

Conservatives don’t exactly love the guy. But they tolerate him, because he’s a right-leaning Democrat in a sea of moderates and liberals. Meanwhile, if Lieberman expects to run again for his Senate position in 2012, the latest polling shows he’ll lose. In a landslide. Against Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, Lieberman’s only hope would be to, what, start leaning more toward progressives in the near term? The GOP won’t stand for that.

He is terrible under pressure. Watch as he literally squirms on camera as he defended his Medicare buy-in health care option. You think going on TV to defend a DADT repeal is going to go any better?

Even old white guys don’t like him. His approval rating, among Connecticut’s voters, stands at 25 percent. We don’t need somebody singing “We Are The World” to get people on board with a DADT repeal, but having a smidge of respect would help.

Joe Lieberman is stupid. No, really.

(For what it’s worth, both the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and Servicesmembers United back Lieberman’s role.)

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