“Damn the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States again!” —Philip Nolan in “The Man Without a Country” by Edward Everett Hale (short story, 1863)
Democrat Joe Lieberman, eight years ago, was denied the vice presidency by suspect Republican counting. Independent Joe Lieberman, two years ago, unwilling to accept rejection in Connecticut’s Democratic senatorial primary, stepped over the impossibly weak Republican candidate and kept his senate seat. Demublican Joe Lieberman, nearly three months ago, after caucusing with Democrats for two years, abandoned that team and spoke forcefully in support of John McCain at the Republican National Convention. Pariah Joe Lieberman, two weeks ago, became a senatorial Philip Nolan when Barack Obama led his party to 55 seats in the senate.
No longer dependent upon Independents Lieberman and Bernie Sanders (the previous senate was 49-49), but with a filibuster-proof, 60-seat, super-majority out of reach, the Democrats could have thrown out Lieberman. Time for revenge? Would he be stripped of power: no committee chairmanships, no influence, nothing to trade…a man without a party?
I will have such revenges on you both…
What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be
The terrors of the earth.
—Shakespeare, “King Lear” (Act 2, Sc. 4)
But then Democrat Mark Begich scored an extra-inning victory over Ted Stevens in Alaska. Democrat Al Franken engendered a mandatory recount by pulling within 206 votes of Norm Coleman in Minnesota (out of nearly 2.9 million cast). And Republican Saxby Chambliss did not garner over 50% of the Georgia vote, forcing a runoff election against Democrat Jim Martin.
The Democrats now had a chance for 58 senators. Add Vermont’s Sanders, a true Independent…and suddenly Joe Lieberman might be #60.
So they all made nice. By a 42-13 vote, the Democrats did not strip Lieberman of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. They did not request, nor did they receive, an apology for Lieberman’s support of either McCain over Obama or Coleman over Franken.
We have lived through eight years of rancorous, partisan politics. Suffering two consecutive thrashings by voters, the Republicans now ingenuously plead for bipartisanship. A warrior would strop his blade and seek revenge. But politics is not war; it is compromise.
So Lieberman gets a bailout from the Democratic Party.
* * * * *
…Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long back on itself recoils;
—John Milton, Paradise Lost
One Comment
He was probably less mean-spirited during the presidential campaign than was Hillary during the primary fiasco. It’s amazing that he wasn’t considered for Secretary of State.