“In the heat of the campaign, I said some things about President-elect Obama that I could have said more clearly. And I said a couple of things that I wish I hadn’t said at all.”
- Joe Lieberman talking to reporters today and trying to mend fences.

He has also described Obama’s transition so far as nearly flawless, without citing any actual flaws mind you.

So there’s that.

Brokaw certainly put the screws to him, and I think it’s fair that Lieberman was taking the “Look, McCain was my friend and I supported him. What do you want from me?” defense.

Still, what’s important for Dems is that Joe is caucusing with them. That’s it. End of story.

So why don’t the netroots get this?

“With its congressional majority, the Democratic Party has refused to seriously try to end the war, to stop the bailout and to stop the trampling of civil liberties, just to name a few off the top of my head,” wrote David Sirota on the popular liberal blog OpenLeft, decrying the serial betrayals of Obama and the congressional Democratic majority. The Democratic Party, he wrote, has “faced no real retribution” for its manifold heresies, something that Sirota believes he and his band of angry bloggers must change. “We better understand why this happened,” he fumed. [...]

“He wasn’t sanctioned,” seethed Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos. “And Senate Democrats trying to make that claim are dishonestly trying to cover up the extent of their betrayal of the American people’s vote for change.”

Do these people not understand the idea of unity? I mean, come on here folks…do you really think the best use of Obama’s and the Dems’ political capital is to punish one of their own? Seriously…what kind of signal would that send?

Moving on…

WASHINGTON — Sen. Joe Lieberman will keep his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee despite hard feelings over his support for GOP nominee John McCain during the presidential campaign.

The Connecticut independent will lose a minor panel post as punishment for criticizing Obama this fall.

Lieberman’s colleagues in the Democratic caucus voted 42-13 Tuesday on a resolution condemning statements made by Lieberman during the campaign but allowing him to keep the Homeland Security Committee gavel but lose a subcommittee chair on the Environment and Public Works panel.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he was very angry by Lieberman’s actions but that “we’re looking forward, we’re not looking back.”

When this comes out, I’m betting we’ll find that Lieberman’s hide was saved largely thanks to the direct intervention of Barack Obama, which is somewhat ironic considering that Lieberman spent the better part of a year campaigning for the guy that Obama just beat in the election.

Democratic Party insiders now say Joe Lieberman will be allowed to remain in the Democratic Caucus and he’ll likely retain his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. His only punishment for supporting Republican John McCain and speaking at the Republican Convention will reportedly be the loss of his chairmanship of the not-exactly prestigious Environment and Public Works Committee.

The leniency is apparently thanks to President-elect Barack Obama who wants bygones to be bygones and has publically stated he would like Lieberman to remain in the caucus. At this point, what Obama wants, he’s going to get, even though there are a few Senate Democrats who would like to take a harsher line with Lieberman.

Democrats will meet tomorrow behind closed doors to determine Lieberman’s fate. But, right now, it looks like Obama really is a uniter — at least between a wayward Senator and the Democratic Caucus.

Everybody knows that Joe isn’t a Republican, and the idea that he would caucus with them was a bit silly.

Still, it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t happen, and it looks as if Obama is trying to mend fences with the Connecticut Senator because of it.

From Huff Post:

President-elect Barack Obama has informed party officials that he wants Joe Lieberman to continue caucusing with the Democrats in the 111th Congress, Senate aides tell the Huffington Post.

Obama’s decision could tie the hands of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has been negotiating to remove Lieberman as chair of the Homeland Security and Government Reform committee while keeping him within the caucus. Lieberman has insisted that he will split from the Democrats if his homeland security position is stripped.

The story I’ve heard so far is that Lieberman would retain his position and seniority in the Homeland security and Government Reform committee, but will be stripped of his seniority in the couple other committees he’s in. George Stephanopoulos confirms at least the first part of this.

Honestly, this make sense for so many reasons, not the least of which is a clear signal from Obama that he’s willing to forgive and forget. Sure, some in the left wing of the Democratic party will be pissed, but my guess is that their grousing will be marginalized as Dems focus on more important policy matters in Obama’s first 100 days.

In other words, “Stop worrying about Joe and let’s start helping Americans.”

More as it develops…

One of the interesting secondary plotlines playing out in Washington is the fate of Joe Lieberman. After his vocal support for John McCain, will Lieberman be allowed to stay in the Democratic caucus? Does he want to?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said, he wants Lieberman to stay in the party’s caucus but that decision is ultimately up to the party itself. Reports are that, if Lieberman stays, he will be stripped of his powerful chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and given Veteran Affairs instead. Lieberman’s people have labeled such a proposal “unacceptable.”

Unfortunately for Lieberman, he doesn’t have a lot of bargaining chips. This is politics and, if you choose to speak at the opposition party’s convention, it doesn’t matter if you were your party’s vice-presidential nominee eight years ago. You’re going to suffer consequences. I respect Lieberman for sticking with his conscience and going with the man he thought best for the job. In a perfect world, politicians wouldn’t be beholden to party. But we don’t live in a perfect world and Lieberman knew full well his actions would anger his party.

At this point, he either remains with the Democrats but has to accept less authority or he caucuses with the Republicans and has to deal with not only being in the minority but being that party’s most liberal caucus member who will undoubtedly infuriate Republican operatives on numerous occasions.

Yes, it’s hard out here for an independent. But once you choose to play the game, you have to deal with the consequences.

From Politico:

In a strong sign that John McCain has not selected Joe Lieberman to be his running mate, Republican members of Congress were told today by McCain’s campaign that the Arizona senator would tap a traditional number two, according to a GOP source. [...]

McCain has been mulling the prospect of tapping Lieberman, and the Democrat-turned-independent Connecticut senator has apparently been vetted.

But Republicans have strongly warned against picking Lieberman, a supporter of abortion rights, and Karl Rove even contacted the senator to urge him to withdraw his name from the veepstakes.

So, as I’ve suspected for quite some time now, this leaves Romney and Pawlenty on the table as the last two Veep choices. Of course there’s always room for a surprise, but my guess is that McCain will go with one of these two and position somebody like Pawlenty as a “surprise.”

We shall see…

Well, the Republican Veepstakes just took another interesting turn, as whispers that not only has Rove asked Lieberman not to run, but he has also been asked to provide more information to the McCain camp.

From Politico:

AP’s Liz Sidoti reported: “Inside GOP circles Thursday, speculation swirled around Lieberman. It was fueled by reports that McCain’s advisers had asked for additional detailed information from him, by McCain’s close friendship with the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, and by word that Republican operatives had been told to prepare for the possibility of an ‘unconventional’ choice.”

This would definitely be a “maverick” move, but considering that Lieberman doesn’t agree with McCain on nearly every single issue except how we execute our foreign policy, a split ticket would be a conundrum for the Republican base. Would they be okay with Joe’s pro-choice stances? And given the concerns about McCain’s age, would Republicans really be okay with handing the keys over to a politician who, for all intents and purposes, is a Democrat?

Also, let’s not forget how ineffectual Lieberman was for Gore as a Veep pick. We’ve all seen this guy in action, and he’s simply not an impressive, motivating figure.

For all these reasons and many I haven’t delved into, I’m still predicting that Romney is the guy…with Pawlenty as a potential second choice.

What do you think?

Overheard: Pawlenty, Romney or Lieberman. Noon on Friday.

Then, there’s this from Stephen Bainbridge:

There’s a rumor floating around my little corner of the vast right-wing conspiracy that John McCain has cut his VP candidates down to Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and FedEx CEO Fred Smith. Boy would the latter be an out of the box choice.

There’s also a rumor about Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, who will probably turn out to be the Chet Edwards of this version of Veepstakes.

And Jonathan Martin reports that Joe Lieberman’s supporters are strongly denying a report by Bob Novak that Lieberman warned McCain against picking him:

A report out today that Joe Lieberman warned John McCain against selecting him to be on the GOP ticket is “totally and absolutely false,” according to a Lieberman source who contacted Politico.

Columnist Robert Novak wrote that the prospect of Lieberman on the ticket is real, but that McCain and some his top backers know it would be politically unrealistic.

“And this has been made clear to McCain by none other than Joe Lieberman himself,” writes Novak.

Not so, says a Lieberman source, stating categorically that the Connecticut senator has not contacted his Arizona colleague to say any such thing.

As I’ve reported, Lieberman is very much being considered by McCain. And it’s an indication of how much backers of the independent-turned-Democrat want the No. 2 slot that they would push back so hard against Novak’s report.

Maybe this Lieberman thing isn’t the pundit’s fantasy that I thought it was.

For example, The Politico reports that the McCain Campaign will move quickly to shift the focus from Obama and the Democrats:

DENVER — John McCain is planning to rollout his vice-presidential nominee in three battleground states this weekend, with large-scale rallies planned for Ohio, Pennsylvania and Missouri, according to aides and advisers.

The GOP nominee-in-waiting will move to immediately change the campaign conversation from Barack Obama’s football stadium acceptance speech Thursday to the new Republican ticket, to be revealed at a noontime Friday rally in a Dayton, Ohio, basketball arena. McCain and his running mate will then travel by bus to Pennsylvania, where they’ll hold an outdoor event at a minor league baseball stadium in Washington County, just southwest of Pittsburgh. On Sunday, the duo will head to suburban St. Louis for another event to be held at a minor league baseball stadium, this one in O’Fallon, Mo.

The Missouri rally is being billed to local Republicans as something of a unity rally, since it will feature McCain, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee — the GOP presidential finalists who effectively divided the vote three ways in the Show Me State’s Super Tuesday primary. A McCain aide warned not to read too much into McCain’s planned guests, however.

The campaign’s leadership has imposed a strict rule on staffers to not discuss the process and have further guarded the selection by parceling out very little information.

The decision, though, has been all but made, according to one top adviser.

Also, remember those rumors on Monday that McCain might announce his choice before Friday ? Well, Marc Ambinder reports that they may be true, and they may be a clue to who McCain might pick:

The prospect of a slightly earlier announcement has some Republicans worried that McCain has settled on Sen. Joe Lieberman., They assume that the campaign would not risk the bad form associated with jumping on Obama’s night if McCain announces a traditional pick, such as Gov. Mitt Romney or Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

Several McCain advisers, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, are actively pushing for Lieberman. Others, including many top fundraisers, are hoping that McCain chooses Gov. Mitt Romney. A smaller faction that includes some of McCain’s longest-serving advisers believe that Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota would be a better pick.

I’ve said more than once that Joe Lieberman would be a horrible pick for McCain (see here, here, here, and here)), and there’s a great column by Robert Novak this morning that sums all the arguments Lieberman up quite nicely:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Reports of strong support within John McCain’s presidential campaign for Independent Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman as the Republican candidate for vice president are not a fairy tale. Influential McCain backers, plus McCain himself, would pick the pro-choice liberal from Connecticut if they thought they could get away with it.

But they can’t get away with it — and this has been made clear to McCain by none other than Joe Lieberman himself.

Lieberman surely doesn’t know that much about Republican politics, but he has close Republican friends. One of them prevailed on Lieberman to tell McCain that a McCain-Lieberman ticket would be a disaster for all concerned, and especially for the GOP.

Actually, Lieberman is a heroic figure among Republicans for having risked his Senate seat to support President George W. Bush’s war policy. But aside from the war, he votes the straight liberal line, including pro-choice on abortion. Lieberman’s Republican friend told him that the Republicans would leave Minnesota in a state of disarray with a McCain-Lieberman ticket, alienating social conservatives who now make up the core of Republican voters.

If not Lieberman, then, who ?

Well, The Politico reports that the Biden pick may have changed McCain’s plans:

DENVER — Democrat Barack Obama’s selection of Joe Biden as a running mate is complicating Republican John McCain’s analysis of his prospective vice presidential contenders.

Biden will make his formal debut Wednesday with a primetime address. McCain is expected to announce his pick after Obama accepts his nomination here on Thursday.

Some insiders are pressing McCain to make a strategic selection, one that beefs up his economic strength, enhances his chance to grab a state or amps up the partisan firepower.

“McCain knows Biden well. He knows how good he is as a knife fighter. He’ll take McCain apart,” said one Republican operative.

Right now, though, the McCain camp is being so tight-lipped about the thought process here that it’s hard to say who has the upper hand. I still say that Mitt Romney is the smart choice for McCain, just like Biden was the smart choice for Obama, but with John McCain there’s always the possibility that he’ll do something unexpected that will piss everybody off.

Cross-posted at Below The Beltway

Last night, National Review’s Byron York reported that the list had narrowed to Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman:

Been distracted much of the day by all this McCain houses stuff. But I’ve been talking to more people about the veep thing, and the picture I get is this: McCain is sitting in front of a console with a switch with two positions: GAMBLE and PLAY IT SAFE. If he moves the switch to GAMBLE, he picks Lieberman. If he moves it to PLAY IT SAFE, he picks Pawlenty. It seems increasingly clear that a Tom Ridge gamble doesn’t make a lot of sense, and a Mitt Romney choice isn’t a big gamble, but it isn’t really safe either.

But then Time’s Mark Halprin said that McCain had settled on Mitt Romney, and the New York Times is reporting that the list is down to Pawlenty and Romney:

SEDONA, Ariz. — Senator John McCain has narrowed his list of potential running mates to a handful of candidates and appears unlikely to select anyone who supports abortion rights, several advisers close to his campaign said on Thursday.

Former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota are the top candidates as Mr. McCain and his advisers gather over the next several days at Mr. McCain’s cabin near Sedona, they said.

(…)

Mr. Romney, who is Mormon, might not be the easiest sell to Christian conservatives, and there remains some opposition to him among evangelical Christians.

Advisers said, however, that as a successful businessman he would bring an economic fluency to the ticket that Mr. McCain lacks, as well as family ties to Michigan, a crucial swing state, where Mr. Romney’s father was governor.

Mr. Pawlenty, an evangelical Christian, traveled frequently with Mr. McCain during the primaries, but he is little known outside Minnesota.

Given all the attention that’s being paid to Barack Obama’s long, drawn out, selection process, it’s hard to read the tea leaves on what McCain and his advisers are thinking.

As I’ve noted before, the idea that Joe Lieberman is really a serious contender for the VP slot seems to be little more than a political wonks fantasy. If McCain wins, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him tap Lieberman — who has pretty much burned his bridges with the Democratic Party at this point — for a Cabinet position such as Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense, but there’s simply no way he’s going to be the Vice-Presidential nominee.

Notwithstanding their sometimes bitter rivalry during the race for the Republican nomination, it seems as though McCain and Romney have made their peace with each other as typified by Romney’s speech at CPAC earlier this year and his endorsement of McCain a week later. Since the Republican race ended, Romney has said more than once — see here and here — that he would be willing to serve as McCain’s running mate if asked. Moreover, while Romney may not be an attention-grabbing pick he would seem to be, under the circumstances McCain faces, a good one that meets the criteria that McCain needs for a running mate. Finally, though I don’t know that McCain is thinking along these lines, selecting Romney has the added advantage of blunting the 2012 and beyond ambititions of Mike Huckabee.

And Pawlenty ? I’ll confess to not knowing much of anything about him. He is apparently a basically successful Governor, which is saying something I suppose, but there is always a danger in selecting a running mate that isn’t known at all on the national stage, as George H.W. Bush can attest.

My guess is that it will be Romney, but there’s the possibility that McCain is waiting to make a final decision until after Obama makes his announcement.

From Fortune:

The U.S. Climate Action Partnership formed last year won’t take a position on the bill, although nine of its members – including General Electric, Alcoa and four utility companies – signed a letter to senators backing the legislation.

The letter, also signed by big environmental groups and obtained by Fortune, says: “Prompt action on climate change is essential to protect America’s economy, security, quality of life and natural environment.”

But other members of the coalition known as U.S. Cap, most visibly Duke Energy, a coal-burning utility, are strongly opposed. “It’s going to translate into significant electricity price increases,” says Jim Rogers, Duke’s CEO.

Will it go down to defeat?

More as it develops…

Neither does Lieberman.

And tonight Chris Matthews ran into one of these well studied right-wing radio hosts and asked him if he knew the difference.

Watch the results…

Moving on…

“President Bush got it exactly right today when he warned about the threat of Iran and its terrorist proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah. It is imperative that we reject the flawed and naïve thinking that denies or dismisses the words of extremists and terrorists when they shout “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” and that holds that — if only we were to sit down and negotiate with these killers — they would cease to threaten us. It is critical to our national security that our commander-in-chief is able to distinguish between America’s friends and America’s enemies, and not confuse the two.”

So I guess North Korea and Libya don’t count, right?

Listen, the only people confusing America’s friends and America’s enemies is Bush, Lieberman and anybody else who suggest that diplomacy is appeasement. It’s not. And it’s been shown that when we go it alone on specious evidence, our ability to have leverage to strike an imminent threat is obviously lessened.

And again…do North Korean and Libya count?

To that point, watch Pat Buchanan make the point for me…it’s towards the back.

My question: will McCain back these statements? After all, Lieberman is his “left” hand man.

More as it develops…

Back in Fall 2006, Joe’s website went down and his campaign blamed the rival Ned Lamont’s campaign…mostly because the netroots were backing Lamont and it was an easy accusation to make against bloggers.

Well, it turns out that not only did Lamont not have anything to do with it, but Lieberman’s people knew the real cause soon after an investigation by the FBI was conducted…back in 2006. That’s right…Lieberman knew about this back in 2006. And the information is only coming out now because a Connecticut newspaper filed a Freedom of Information Act request.

From AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Joe Lieberman’s re-election campaign caused its own Web site to crash on the eve of the August 2006 Connecticut primary, federal investigators have found — not supporters of Democratic challenger Ned Lamont, whom Lieberman implied were responsible.

“In short, the server that hosted the joe2006.com Web site failed because it was overutilized and misconfigured,” according to an Oct. 25, 2006, e-mail included in FBI documents obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press. “There was no evidence of (an) attack.”

Once reported by the media, the accusations by Lieberman’s campaign helped overwhelm the Web site on primary day, too, the investigators said.

Fair’s fair and for Joe to sit on this for more than a year and a half says a lot about his character. This type of nonsense gives Independents a bad name, and it’s time to apologize, and soon.