Joe the Senator: A Sign of the Times

It’s miracle enough that the Democrats would nominate, and the country elect, a black President. It would be a far greater miracle still were the Democrats to expel Joe Lieberman just for being a sanctimonious twit, an insurance company flunky and, for all intents and purposes, an agent of the Likud.

[It’s those insurance companies, many of them based in Connecticut, that are the main obstacle in the way of single-payer health insurance, the one real solution to America’s health care woes. They’re the main reason why Obama’s health care proposals, though better than the woeful status quo, still fall so far short.]

But you’d think that actively campaigning against Obama and for John McCain would be enough to get Joe Lieberman out of the Senate’s Democratic caucus. Reportedly, most Democratic senators, including Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer, feel that way. But not Bill Clinton and not Barack Obama! It’s that “bipartisan” thing, metastasizing into an intra-party thing. And, since no one wants to cross the President-elect, Joe the Senator will probably stay put. You’d think it would be enough for the POP, the Party of Pusillanimity, to let the bastard go, and then “reach across the aisle” to him. Evidently, that’s too harsh for “No Drama Obama.”

This “revolting development” bodes ill for what should be among the first orders of business for the new administration: bringing Bush and Company to justice. Remember how Bill Clinton let Iran-Contra investigations lapse for the sake of good relations with the GOP. They paid him back mercilessly. This is worse – since we’re still mired in two Bush wars and as prone as ever to getting involved in others (with Iran or some other enemy du jour). Unless we settle accounts definitively with the murder and mayhem still going on, more murder and mayhem are inevitable – no matter how competent its perpetrators may be.

This is not the only way in which Obama’s first week as President-elect has been disheartening. No sooner was he elected than he met with his “economic team” – a motley of Clinton advisors and Wall Street moles (including the pernicious Robert Rubin). [Is there a pattern here? Remember how, within a day of securing the Democratic nomination, Obama went to pay obeisance to AIPAC, the pillar of the Israel lobby!] Then there was the appointment of Nancy Pelosi’s pitbull (sans lipstick), Rahm Emanuel, as chief of staff. That just about insures that the Bush wars will go on and on and that their lessons will go unlearned. Now, to make matters even worse, it is reported that Warren G. Christopher – no word describes him better than “hapless” – will oversee the transition with the State Department; and that Sam Nunn, Mister Right Wing Democrat, will supervise the transition at the Pentagon. The sins of those two are too numerous, and too obvious, to recount – though Nunn does deserve credit, along with the war criminal Kissinger, of daring to think nuclear abolitionist thoughts.

Of course, circumstances may still force Obama to do the right thing, but only if “we the people” drag him kicking and screaming. Otherwise, when the Obamamaniacs and their hordes of recent converts crash, it won’t be a pretty sight. “Change we can believe in” indeed!