Dimwits, cons, ninnies, narcissists, thieves and liars

Notice how they're all men, and they're all wearing suits.

All week long I've tried to write a blogpost about the failure of American leadership at nearly every level. I've deleted more paragraphs than have ended up in this post, and all that remains is the original blogpost title.

I know I'm not alone in my dismay and disregard for the people who run this country, and who run the big companies in our national and international marketplace.

In my naivete, I guess I expect more from people who have been elevated to positions of power and responsibility, then most of them seem able to deliver as fallible humans. And we as followers, constituents, employees, citizens are frequently too weak or unwilling to throw the bums out, and wrest control of the whole shebang ourselves.

My disappointment is sharpened to a jagged edge this week by the failure of the Senate to impose justice on Senator Lieberman, by auto execs who fly to Congressional testimony in private jets, by insurance companies buying banks so they can be part of the financial (handout) bailout, by bailed-out insurance and bank execs using taxpayer money for bonuses, by a President-elect for whom I still hold out hope who is selecting Clinton has-beens and warhawks for his cabinet, by a lame-duck president who, when he is not absent, is still saddling us with ruinous regulations and by our insistence on using an relentlessly unstable, woefully complex, Wall Street, run by frantic, greedy traders who are like ADD students on amphetamines.

These are whom we choose as our leaders. And when things are going well, we hang on their every word. Read about their amazing exploits. Try to divine the source of their genius. Buy magazines filled with their pictures. Covet books filled with their marketing and management secrets. Crowd auditoriums just to be in the same room with them. Pay them millions of dollars to run our companies, and our country. Hail them as heroes. Weep when they die.

Until the world proves they are asses, and we were bigger asses for thinking they weren't.

I know it's exponentially more complex than I am making it, but:

- How does laying off 52,000 employees help a company or the economy? (doesn't it make both worse?)
- How does laying off 52,000 please investors when most of the laid-off were shareholders, and most of us, who have money in 401K accounts, and mutual funds, can't be happy that such a move will be ruinous to an already ruined economy (Citigroup BTW, fell below the $5 a share threshold and now cannot be held in mutual fund accounts)
- What does the opinion of investors matter when we now know they know so little about anything? (This quote from the Hartford Courant this morning really stuns me - does this "consultant" really believe he knows what he's talking about, or that any of us believe him anymore, when he says: "Investors are concerned about the guarantees embedded in life insurers' balance sheets related to variable annuities," said Donald Light, senior analyst at the Boston-based consulting firm Celent. Some annuities linked to equities "guarantee a minimum level of appreciation, and when the underlying equity investments plummet, that creates liabilities.")
- Doesn't laying of 52,000 employees mean, potentially, 50,000 less TVs purchased, a couple thousand less cars purchased, several hundred less refrigerators and sofas purchased?
- Does laying off 52,000 employees mean the CEO gets to keep his bonus?
- Does any CEO still think that he or she really has a handle on controlling their company, much less the way their company operates in a marketplace controlled by unfathomable forces?
- Can we ever really consider bailing out auto manufacturers who refused to create fuel-efficient cars, much less green, alternative-energy cars?
- Aren't the reprehensible executives and traders who have crippled our entire globe more criminal than someone who rips off an ATM, or robs a bank? Where is the exploding red dye pack for the corporate criminal who walks away with the money earned on the backs of employees and customers?

What this world needs right now is a little calming down. Let's shut down Wall Street for a month. Put a moratorium on layoffs and foreclosures. Ban all executive bonuses. Prevent lobbyists from getting any closer than 500 yards from the Capitol. Kill No Child Left Behind. Freeze the assets of every CEO who has led a company to bankruptcy. Let's build some roads, and bridges, and schools and theaters, and thousands of electric cars. Let's demand that every big box store in every community fill their roofs with solar cells, or shut down.

Lets move quietly through the holidays. Treat each other well. Exchange small gifts. Treat our earth as the precious resource it is, and understand that the only way we get through this, is together.

Yeah, huh, you think?

Like I said.

There's a difference between justice and revenge

And Howard Dean doesn't seem to be willing to recognize it.

I'm sure he understands it. I'm sure he knows that the filibuster-proof Democratic Senate majority is a limp, soggy and unrealistic as a wet dream.

I'm sure he knows he's handing us a fistful of steaming crap because there's no really good reason why Creepy Joe™ Lieberman's Senate colleagues allowed him to retain his position of power without so much as a "I'm sorry. I promise I won't do it again."

Lieberman's bad behavior was rewarded, and it will surely spawn other bad behavior by other despicable Senators down the road.

It isn't revenge to punish bad behavior when it is outside the lines of what's socially or morally acceptable. Lieberman helped deliver a war which has created a river of blood and an ocean of dept. Lieberman has let an incompetent administration get away with murder. Lieberman helped the Bush administration strip civil liberties from US citizens.

Punishing a murderer is not revenge, it's justice. Punishing treason is not revenge, it's justice. Punishing fraud is not revenge, it's justice.

But apparently not in the Senate.

What's more hilarious?

Creepy Joe™ Lieberman's act of contrition: "Look, I appreciate their respect for my independence of mind. (Here, the Senator chuckles.) That's who I am?"

And: "Some of the things that people have said I said about Sen. Obama are simply not true," Lieberman said to a packed room of reporters, just outside the Senate chambers. "There are other statements that I made that I wish I had made more clearly.There are some that I made that I wish I had not made at all," Lieberman told reporters. "In the heat of campaigns, that happens to all of us, but I regret that. And now it's time to move on."

Whatever happened to "I'm sorry. I was out of my mind on Sloe Gin Fizzes. I'm an asshole. I'm in rehab, and it's time to move on."

Or, Ruff Tuff™ Harry Reid's anger: "I pretty well understand anger. I would defy anyone to be more angry than I was."

"Yeah, I was so angry I almost broke a pencil. But I didn't.
I was so angry I almost cursed, but shucks, I couldn't.
I was so angry I was going to raise my voice, but I didn't want to bother anyone.
I was so angry I almost told Lieberman he was a lying, backstabbing, vile, two-faced, egocentric, warmongering, ass-kissing, friend-betraying prick. But instead I told him he was a great man, and a Democrat."

Josh Marshall reports that Lieberman was expelled from his Senate Pilates class. But that couldn't possibly be true. Lieberman's abs are the pride of the Senate, or am I getting him confused with Cindy Crawford.

42 to 13

Can you believe it?

What little respect I had for Democrats in the Senate is gone.

And what will the weasel say?

Letting the bum off the hook

I'm writing this before it happens. Not because I'm prescient, but because I have a feeling I'm going to be mad as hell later today, and not capable of writing my thoughts coherently.

The Senate appears to be poised to let Senator Creepy Joe™ Lieberman get away with it.

Unfortunately, it's what many of us expected, and dreaded. Ruff Tuff Harry Reid hasn't shown a stiff spine in the entire time he's led the Senate, so how can we expect him to show one now.

Our own Senator Chris Dodd, who is in something of a compromised position, will serve as Lieberman's defender.

What's the example that gets set here? Obama and Dodd would like us to think that their magnanimity, and forbearance will demonstrate a new unity in the Senate which will allow us to reach across the aisle to get things done.

Pardon me gents, but haven't you ever heard the old maxim, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice..."

You can mark the day on the calendar that the most skeptical among us predict that neither the Republicans, nor Lieberman will show cooperation unless their own best interests are served. Lieberman is using you now, as he used you before, and he'll use you again and again, for self-aggrandizement.

The filibuster-proof Senate? Don't make me laugh.

Lieberman is currently a party of one, and the symbolism of the egoism should resonate.

I understand, you're all in the same club, and you'll have to face oily Joe in the elevator, but understand, when you let him back into the fold, he'll be laughing behind your back as the elevator door closes.

As for the Connecticut constituents of Dodd and Lieberman, if this deal gets done, the majority of us will be even more disgusted than we are now. If this deal gets done, it will be all the proof we need that the new Senate, the new attitude, the new openess is exactly like the old.

And, as always, all of us are wrong, and you, you who are so wise that you let a sorry President execute an immoral law, you who allowed our Constitutional freedoms to be stripped away, you who allowed torture and abductions, you who oversaw the demise of the economy...you are right.

Dodd plays god

Well, what do you know? Chris Dodd was in Connecticut this weekend's Herald Press, Jeff Mill reports that Dodd reiterated his support of Creepy Joe™ Lieberman while attending a conference on after-school programs.

Dodd cited Barack Obama's support of Lieberman and said again that "“I don’t think my constituents should be penalized” by removing Lieberman from his chairmanship.

Dodd said he would speak in support of Leiberman at the Tuesday Democratic caucus meeting, at which a secret ballot will be taken to determine Lieberman's fate.

I noted in this blog a few days ago that there might be several other reasons why Dodd would support Lieberman - his longterm friendship (forty years Dodd claimed yesterday), his need for support during his own scandal (friend of Angelo), his membership in a very exclusive club (Senate - incumbent party), his need to do penance (for supporting Lamont against Lieberman), his real lack of concern for the constituents he represents.

Reporters did not ask Dodd how his constituents would be punished, nor whether he has spent time with constituents to determine their feelings on the topic, nor what the consensus of opinion on the topic was in communications to Dodd's senate office (I'll call tomorrow to find out).

If the words of editorial writers and columnists in and out of the state is any reflection of the feelings of the public, Dodd is wrong, and will resort to the regal Senatorial role of playing god by voting his conscience (or lack therof), instead of voting the will of his constituents.

I think the question that has to be asked is "just how loyal is Lieberman?" Reflections on the past three years would yield the answer, "not very." But ask yourself some of the questions columnists have been asking:

Why didn't Lieberman exercise an of his power of committee chair to investigate the many wrongdoings of the Bush administration?

If he couldn't investigate Bush, why does he deserve to be chairman?

If the Republicans had won control of the Senate, by some miracle, would Lieberman abandon the Democrats to accept a Republican chairmanship?

If the Democrats remove Lieberman from his chairmanship, will he move to caucus with the Republicans, and if that question can be legitimately posed, is it enough of a sign of his lack of loyalty?

If McCain had won and Lieberman had been offered a cabinet position, would Lieberman have abandoned his Senate seat?

If Obama is so concerned about Lieberman, why doesn't he offer him a cabinet post, or a cushy diplomatic position?

Does Lieberman really represent the constituents of Connecticut?

The answers to most of these questions are obvious, and all the more reason to call Chris Dodd's office, or email him now, to voice your displeasure with his support of Lieberman.


CHRIS DODD
Senate office number:(202) 224-2823
Email:chris.dodd@enews.senate.gov

The press release we'd all love to read

It goes something like, "We love you Joe, get lost."

If only our lawmakers had the balls and the backbones to write it.

Maddow's case against Lieberman

One of the purposes of this blog is to relieve my poor wife from the burden of my constant carping about what's wrong with the world. Still, even when I write of my frustrations with Creepy Joe™ Lieberman, I still tend to vent at home, and I think I've made ever point the brilliant Rachel Maddow did last night on her show, but somehow, Lucy found the totality of the argument more cohesive, and more convincing. So I share it with anyone who may still not be convinced that Lieberman should not be allowed to keep his powerful chairmanship.

Put the attack dog on a short leash

Paul Abrams, at the Huffington Post, paints a amazingly lifelike portrait of Creepy Joe™ Lieberman and his out-of-control ego.

And he has a solution that makes sense and which dims the spotlight on Senator Attention Hound.

Grovel, wheedle, whine and beg

It's now official. Creepy Joe™ Lieberman's chairmanships in the Senate will come down to a vote of the Democratic caucus next week.

This time, Joe, it won't be Republicans voting for you.

This time it won't be uninformed voters who you can deceive with promises to work for a Democratic presidency.

This time it will be the colleagues you've been kicking all summer, Joe.

And constituents are making calls to keep you away from a chairmanship.

How does it feel to be so reviled?

And it looks like you might get kicked back. The votes are piling up against you, just like they did against your pals McCain and Palin.

Wear your shin guards. And for all the begging you're going to have to do, wear your knee pads too. And bring some condiments for all the crow you'll have to eat.

We'll all be out here in Connecticut cheering...against you.

Wrong again, Chris

So now Chris Dodd is channeling Barack Obama, and, according to the Hartford Courant, he's saying that the last thing the president-elect wants is a messy fight over Creepy Joe™ Lieberman.

"What does Barack Obama want?" Dodd rhetorically asked reporters Friday in Hartford. "He's talked about reconciliation, healing, bringing people together. I don't think he'd necessarily want to spend the first month of this president-elect period, this transition period, talking about a Senate seat, particularly if someone is willing to come forward and is willing to be a member of your family in the caucus in that sense."

ADDENDUM (According to this Washington Monthly piece, if Obama allows Lieberman to keep his chairmanship, he allows it at his own risk)

There seems to be two things going on here. One, Chris Dodd, a longtime "friend" of Lieberman is still looking for absolution for supporting Lieberman's opponent, Ned Lamont in the Senate race two years ago.

The other is the protect-your-own colleagiality of the Senate. And while Lieberman shat on this brotherhood repeatedly, by the unwritten rules of this august organization, his defiling act must be forgiven because he is, after all, a brother Senator.

Of course Dodd, who still faces his own problems (remember he is a "friend of Angelo" too), might need the support of his Connecticut senatorial colleague when push comes to shove.

I wouldn't count on it Chris. It's obvious that Lieberman cares about one thing, and one thing only, Lieberman. When he can't win an election legitimately, he changes the rules. When he can't convince his fellow Democrats that the war in Iraq is a wonderful thing, he embraces George Bush. When he sniffs the opportunity to be a powerful cabinet member, maybe even a vice president, he becomes a Republican attack dog on the presidential campaign trail. And now that his bet hasn't paid off, he wants his old job, and his old perks back.

You think Lieberman is going to stick his neck out for you, Chris? Better think twice.

Dodd also raised another ridiculous rhetorical question:

"The question I have to ask myself is: Joe was elected by the people of this state — independents, Republicans and Democrats," Dodd said. "Whatever anger there may exist within a party, I don't think that ought to be visited on the people of the state — and they shouldn't be asked to pay a price for people's political decisions."

You've got to be kidding Chris. Have you talked to any Constituents lately? (That, of course, is, itself, a rhetorical question since you've been laying very low because of the Countrywide scandal.) Most of us would be very happy to have Joe go away, far away.

Lieberman gambled his power and authority in the Senate for a chance to sit on McCain's right hand in the White House. That bet didn't pay off. So now we, the citizens who "elected" him, are left with a flaccid representative unable to wield any influence for his home state.

And what if McCain won? Lieberman would have abandoned Connecticut in the wink of a Palin eye. And he wouldn't have looked back.

Lieberman's been absent from the Senate for the past eight months while he's campaigned for a Republican. We didn't miss him. (You've got some 'splaining to do on that account yourself brother Chris.)

I don't care if Lieberman wants to call himself a Democrat. I just don't want him to call himself a Connecticut Senator.

Resign from the Senate, Joe, and do it quickly. That will avoid the messy politics Chris Dodd is talking about. At the very least, if we really care about avoiding a "mess" Dodd ought to be urging Harry Reid to make an immediate, swift and righteous excision. After all, it's not the Senate, or the electorate, Harry Reid or the Democratic caucus who is making this affair "messy." It's Lieberman again. If he had the dignity to truly embrace reconciliation in the White House and Senate, then he'd leave Washington as soon as possible, return to Fairfield County and spend his time drinking top shelf gin as he sits and commiserates with his hedge-fund-manager neighbors.

Right now, Connecticut has two Senators in trouble. Both are avoiding their constituents. (Have you checked your approval ratings lately?) But it's apparent they are watching each other's back.

But who's watching out for Connecticut? Ned Lamont would have been.

What are we going to do about little Joey?

(NY Times photo)

It's time for Democratic leaders to stop wringing their hands and escort Creepy Joe™ Lieberman across the aisle so he can be reunited with his Republican soul.

Time Magazine, in reporting on the "Lieberman problem," suggests that Obama's push for American unification, and his urging to ignore party politics, means that Lieberman ought to maintain his chairmanships and Democratic seniority.

No one would ever suggest that Obama invite John McCain, Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, Mitch McConnell in his cabinet. How could anyone suggest that after Lieberman's performance as a Republican henchman, that he should be returned to his positions of Democratic power in the Senate.

And Lieberman's whine that he ought to be able to keep those posts are like a man convicted of repeated DWI's who whines about his right to continue driving.

As I suggested in an earlier post, Lieberman has failed the principles of his former party affiliation, but worse, he's failed the people of Connecticut he was elected to represent, and because of that he should immediately resign his Senate post. Of course that would leave the appointment of his successor to Governor Jodi Rell, and I'm not sure I'm ready for Lisa Moody as my senator.

But Joe, we'll make you chairman of the sub-sub-committee on Postal adhesives

(AP photo)

Aw. Looks like Creepy Joe™ Lieberman isn't happy with what Harry Reid has offered him.

Now he's gonna go cry to Lindsay Graham.

Poor Joe, he's been a loser for two years, and it's only now occuring to him.

Lieberman back from the woodshed, acts "coy"

He ain't talking.

He's not a man of humility. If he was still a chairman of this or that, I bet we would be hearing about it.

Maybe he's got to check with the McCain campaign.

Resign, Joe Lieberman, you've let Connecticut down

Today I temporarily drop the Creepy Joe trademark with which I have taunted Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman for months.

Lieberman meets with Senator leader Harry Reid, and a likely outcome is that Lieberman will lose his seniority and committee chairmanships in the Senate. Maybe you think that hurts Lieberman, and Lieberman alone. It doesn't, it hurts Connecticut.

Never mind that Lieberman has betrayed his party and his ideals, he has abandoned the very people he was elected to represent.

Many of us understood that he was duping the least suspecting, most trusting among us when he dumped his Democratic affiliation and ran against Ned Lamont as an independent. He told us that he was better equipped to represent the people of Connecticut because of his experience, and influence in the Senate.

Yet he gambled that influence and the weight of that experience on a all-chips wager that John McCain would become president. His vituperative invective on the campaign trail put the final bricks in the wall between Lieberman and his Democratic colleagues. As late as yesterday he warned a conservative talk show host about what he called the frightening power of a filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the Senate.

We have to imagine that with talk like that he never planned to caucus with the Democrats after his campaign run with McCain.

And because he's abandoned the power he would have had this session as a Democratic Senator, he loses the ability to influence decision making with the majority. No longer will he be the deal-breaking 50th vote. No longer can he negotiate with others because he has some influence on a powerful committee.

We may as well have a freshman Senator with a minority party in the Senate. That's how much influence Lieberman will have. And probably substantially less since he's worked so hard to alienate his colleagues.

Think of how much more influence we would have today if Ned Lamont was occupying a seat in the Senate.

In my mind, it's grounds to ask for his resignation. He isn't the man he said he was when he last campaigned for election. He doesn't represent the party he claimed he was affiliated. And he's lost the power to influence decisions for the people of Connecticut.

He will be a lame-duck Senator for the next for years, and we're stuck with him.

So, Joe, if you have a decent bone left in that back of yours, do us a favor and resign.

Political comedy in Minnesota

I'm in the land of Garrison Keillor and Al Franken (where Franken is now leading in the Senatorial race), and the political theater is getting heated up as Norm Coleman, the incumbent, is being charged with ethics violations.

No, this is not a Saturday Night Live skit.

The grace and intelligence of a rabid wildebeest

John McCain is fond of spouting the bi-partisan cliche, but he can't seem to walk the talk.

Gestures of collegial greeting are common, even among opponents in the Senate, so why does McCain have so much trouble looking Barack Obama in the eye.

As Josh Marshall at TPM, and later Colin McEnroe, have suggested, perhaps it's primate dominance theory.

Or maybe he's just a crabby old man. "Hey, you kids keep your ball out of my yard!"

Now is the time to deep six Creepy Joe™

You can tell I'm not a politician.

If I were Ruff Tuff™ Harry Reid, I'd dump Creepy Joe™ Lieberman in a Stamford minute. There's not much at risk. The Democratic Party in the Senate looks as if it'll pick up enough seats to make Lieberman's vote essential. And even if John McCain wins (Lord help us), Lieberman's seat will be filled by Jodi Rell because the Connecticut State Legislature never took seriously the proposal to make re-filling a Senate seat, a legislative or referendum issue (it doesn't hurt that CT House Speaker Jim Amman supported Lieberman over Lamont, even after Lieberman abandoned the party).

But it turns out that Democratic heads might be turned by money. Money, of all things. Can you imagine. Lieberman has been making generous donations to Democratic Senate races. And, as the L.A. Times' Andrew Malcolm notes, that may make them less likely to leave Joe in the lurch.

It demonstrates, mostly, that Lieberman is a political animal of some skill, and that when push comes to shove, it's his own skin he thinks of first.

Mr. Bi-partisan, Creepy Joe™ Lieberman's fear of Democrats

It's been reported that Connecticut's US Senator, Creepy Joe™ Lieberman received a "hero's welcome," on his return to the Senate, yesterday, from Republicans.

And despite the fact that he brags often about "crossing the aisle," it appears he was afraid to cross over to the Democratic side of the Senate floor on his return visit.

He'll be sneaking in and out of the Senate the way he now sneaks in and out of the state of Connecticut.