Joe Lieberman isn’t the problem
Look, unless we were blind and still living in the ’50s, we knew that the Senate was going to be a problem on healthcare legislation. We knew this back in March. Senator Harry Reid has had approximately nine months to come up with a strategy to pass a healthcare bill through the Senate. In the nine months, he was unable to garner one Republican vote. He’s been unable to garner enough Democratic votes to stave off a filibuster. If, by some chance, he can procedurally outmaneuver Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln, he probably has 54 votes to pass an extremely watered-down healthcare bill which will not cover all Americans. (Let’s celebrate.)
Progressives, we only have ourselves to blame. We’ve known since 2002 that we have an uphill battle to fight. We are fighting not only conservative Republicans but also uninformed Americans, the “liberal media” and the corporatists. This last category is a huge problem. It encompasses both Democrats and Republicans.
Senator Ben Nelson has stated that he wants more abortion controls in the healthcare bill. What? This is not an abortion bill. Yet, Ben Nelson would hold up progress so that we can write a special phrase or clause dedicated to abortion. What is wrong with this man? The current laws are clear. Public money cannot fund abortions. There’s no ambiguity. There is no language in this bill that would support abortions. So what is he talking about?
Back to Joe Lieberman. We saw in his reelection campaign who he really was. Joe Lieberman was vindictive, pompous and extremely flexible on the issues depending upon whether it was advantageous for him and his career to go one way or the other (see video above). He supported expansion of Medicare just a few years ago. Now it is the worst thing ever. If anything good has come out of this healthcare debate is that Joe Lieberman has clearly shown the voters of Connecticut that he is not looking out for them. It’s hard for me to imagine either Republicans or Democrats supporting Joe Lieberman anymore. He has no principles. He has proven this over and over and over again.
Back to Harry Reid. What is he doing? He has shown little or no leadership on this issue. He’s shown the willingness to get in front of the cameras, but he never says anything of substance.
Finally, it is time for progressives to realize that we might have bitten off more than we can chew. We’ve worked hard over the last four years to get Democrats elected to national office. For the most part, we’ve had great success. Unfortunately, maybe we did not do the right thing. We tried to elect Democrats. Maybe we should’ve tried to elect progressives. Maybe we should’ve insisted on trying to find candidates who supported healthcare reform, closing Guantánamo Bay, not spying on Americans without warrants and withdrawing troops from Iraq expeditiously. I think these last nine months should not get us dispirited or disheartened; instead, we need to redouble our efforts. Our country depends on it.
