Republicans don’t trust him. Democrats don’t like him. But Connecticut likes having a well connected Senator, so they keep voting for him. It may be Connecticut’s intentional way of screwing the rest of the country. And he just announced his opposition to allowing health care reform go to the senate floor for a vote. Mind you, he isn’t saying he’ll vote against it. He’s saying he won’t vote to allow it to go the floor for a real vote. Such is the senatorial dance that they can block anything without actually voting against anything.
Of course, I’m talking about Joe the “I like Republican wars and Democratic unions” Lieberman. The only things that schmuck can be trusted to do are find an angle to stay in office and milk his office. It now looks like he’s jumping into the opening vacated by Senator Dodd to be the insurance company’s lapdog. Dodd is such a huge corporate sellout to the financial industry (as his election opponent keeps pointing out) that he is now willing to take on the insurance companies that have given him millions over the years just to show he’s not on their payroll (Despite a well established reputation as the Senator from Aetna …) Of course, he might not vote for the bill either; he’s just willing to let it go to the floor.
But anyway, this gives Lieberman the perfect opening to milk a new corporate constituency. The insurance companies come out against the current bills under consideration and the next day, Lieberman comes out against them also. He claims it is for budget reasons but the CBO is still saying that the public option (any variant under discussion) will save money. Of course, he’s also in the perfect position to get Obama’s attention as the new Olympia Snowe to be bought. See articles here and here.
It is absolutely clear that congress is run by professional politicians that don’t give a damn about good policy. They care about sticking around long enough to get power and money, so they can get more power and money. There are two huge obstacles to democracy in this country right now. Gerrymandering in the house and a lack of term limits in both houses. Those two things create the Lieberman’s, Dodd’s, and Hatches’ of the world. Most of these guys aren’t even partisan because they believe the crap coming out of their mouths. They do it because the road to the sweet committee positions lies in being the majority party and being a good footsoldier in that party. So, if policy A is good for their party today, great. If the same policy is good for the other party, forget it. The entire health care debate comes down to individual politicians trying to get good deals for their own self-interests and trying to make the other party look bad. That’s it. Sure, there are a few actually trying to have constructive dialogue and enact sound policy. But they are so few, that they might as well not be there at all.
If the Tea Party movement ever actually decides to throw all the bums out and promote term limits, sign me up. I don’t care who is in congress as long as they are not allowed to stay more than 12 years. No more being bought and sold by special interests, no more years of wheeling and deeling for committee positions, no more congressional pensions. Our founding fathers would be confused by a lot of things in the modern world, but more than anything, they would probably be flabbergasted at professional politicians. Politics was supposed to be a low-paying, serve your country, miserable job, from which you would soon go home in a few years. You weren’t supposed to get rich doing it or spend years there. You weren’t supposed to want to be there. Now it is filled with power-mad egomaniancs who can’t imagine being anywhere else, just like Joe.