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.
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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.)
Mike in Asheville, nee "in Brooklyn"
Sorry Queerty, but the Number 1 reason why this is a bad idea is that Gay, Inc. has not bought him off. Lieberman only takes tough positions and presses political backbone when he is paid a whole lot of money. He has mostly singlehandedly wrecked health care reform doing the biding of his puppet masters who have paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars. The only way to get Lieberman to do what you want is to essentially bribe him; the fee: he’d probably would be a half-hearted job for $500K; want him to accomplish something, better be ready with $2+ million.
Mike in Asheville, nee "in Brooklyn"
On the brighter side, this news will offer Jon Stewart another opportunity to mock Lieberman with Stewart’s excellent impersonation of Droopy.
greenluv1322
Queerty, take off your tiaras get the glitter out of your eyes and pay attention. This is not about GAY RIGHTS, America has never done anything for any kind of minority. Whenever America changes anything it’s because it’s about them, somehow. DADT is about national security. Heteros are mostly too dumb to learn English with proficiency much less Arabic. So they can’t keep kicking GAY linguists out of the military. Learn something from Michael Jackson “All I really want to say is…they don’t really care about us!” That is all. Carry on.
Peter
Lieberman????? NO,NO,NO.
Keith in SF
To me the most obvious point is the White House wants the repeal to fail. When the Senator from Aetna fails to get DADT repealed the WH can then say they tried but the support wasn’t there.
bondwooley
It’s about time Joe did something sane. And, after all, it’s not like the soldiers are going to be telling secrets from Roswell:
http://bit.ly/9YNli3
(satire)
Robert, NYC
Lieberman is nothing more than a political opportunist, a flip-flopper of the worst kind. I don’t give a damn he’s chairing a bill to repeal DADT, he’s only doing it to curry a bit of favor with some Gay voters in his state. He’d sell his own mother for political gain. He’s just another snake in the grass. He doesn’t even believe in full equality for LGBT people either.
J. Clarence
Queerty, you may be correct about all of those things; however, there is just one reason why picking Joe Lieberman is a good idea: he is the chairmen of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee. Which pretty much trumps all of the reasons against him.
Plus, he will just be the lead sponsor, other Democrats, more reliable ones, will carry the bill across the finish line, such as Carl Levin, chairmen of the Armed Services committee–who is on record as being a supporter of the bill.
And Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is not shaping up to be a controversial issues, even the King and Princes of Darkness, Dick and Liz Cheney, are behind it. Conservatives do not see it as an issue to go crazy over. So while there might a good set of Republicans that will vote against it likely will pass with a decent majority.
Josh AZ
There are only 52 US Senators that support the repeal of DADT. It doesn’t matter who the “point man” is, or who the President is. The 48 NO votes won’t change their minds.
StopHRC.com
Lieberman was endorsed by HRC over his much much more progressive opponent, Ned Lamont. Even though Lieberman was pro-civil union and Lamont was pro-marriage, HRC still endorsed him. So in reponse to Mike, yes, Gay Inc. has bought Lieberman.
Paul
Lieberman is impotent — I mean politically.
This is not good news.
Does anyone understand why SLDN “lauded the announcement”
Josh AZ
@Paul: SLDN is dishonest, that’s why. They keep telling people that “DADT can be repealed this year” in an effort to raise money, not because they actually believe it.
Everyone knows DADT repeal will not even be considered by the Congress until AFTER the mid-terms.
San Francisco Treat
This “no repeal until after the election” line of thought seems to be coming conventional wisdom. I don’t think that’s necessarily the strategy here. Democrats are in trouble and much of it is due to their having absolute power and appearing to accomplish little of significance (which I disagree with, but think is the collective perception). DADT repeal would be a mark on the board that 70%+ of Americans approve of. Couple that with pulling some sort of health care reform from the verge of collapse (reconciliation and blame Republicans for their obstinance) and passing some sort of jobs bill (see the successful test vote today on that) AND THEN it builds a narrative that the Democrats are doing exactly what they said they would do BEFORE the last election which enticed TONS of people to vote for them. We can probably get ENDA before the end of Obama’s first term if it goes down like this – which is enough to make me willing to work for him in 2012.
Josh AZ
@San Francisco Treat: Wake up SFT, national polling doesn’t matter. Nearly one-half of our States are fully anti-LGBT. The polling data in THEIR States matters.
Nothing happens until after the mid-terms. No, it doesn’t look good.
Jon
So basically what you are saying is that he is not a liberal Democrat so you don’t like him. You guys don’t seem to understand that, if you want equal rights, you need to broaden your base – and maybe get over yourselves a little bit.
Pete
So this is what Howdy Doody looks like at age 80.
Well, he has helped to kill health care reform to keep the insurance company executives billionaires. I am trying to figure out who will get rich by the repeal of DADT. This is the only reason this whore would think of sponsoring the repeal of it. He is only out for himself, and those who have bought him.