I watched Late Edition on CNN today and Wolf Blitzer posed the question to Senator Chris Dodd if his same-state Senator Joe Lieberman were to address the RNC convention, would he then call for him to be stripped of his chairmanships in the Senate. Dodd replied by calling Liberman a friend and said he would not push for the stripping the positions of one of McCain's top surrogates.

Apologies for the short diary, I will try to locate the transcript from today's show later. I am wondering what are the thoughts around the community on this.

On June 25, Brave New Films launched Lieberman Must Go, their petition drive urging the Senate Democratic Steering Committee to boot Joe Lieberman from the Democratic caucus. The petition reads:

We CANNOT tolerate a leader of the Senate Democratic Caucus who supports George Bush and McCain's War in Iraq. We CANNOT tolerate a Democratic chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee who endorses and stumps for McCain. We call on the Senate Democratic Steering Committee to strip Joe Lieberman of his chairmanship and his leadership role.

2 weeks later, 43,460 and counting have signed and tomorrow Brave New Films will deliver the petitions to the steering committee.

The Hill has it:

Liberal activists say they will deliver a 43,000-signature online petition to Democrats on Wednesday seeking to strip Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) of his rank and Homeland Security Committee chairmanship in the next Congress.

More From The NY Times Caucus blog:

The group's goal is not to have Mr. Lieberman kicked out now - the Democrats need his vote to keep their slim majority - but in 2009, presuming the party picks up more seats in November.

The leadership isn't likely to embrace the idea - at least not right now. Democrats generally respected Mr. Lieberman's support for the war and Mr. McCain as principled stands. But they have become increasingly irritated with him, particularly after he went on a conference call sponsored by the McCain campaign last month characterizing the presumed Democratic nominee, Senator Barack Obama, as weak on Israel.

Harry Reid, the leader of the Democratic majority who is close with Mr. Lieberman, typically replies to questions about Mr. Lieberman's membership by saying that Democrats need his 51st vote. That leaves unsaid what might happen if they have more than 51 votes come next year.

What happens is that Joe Lieberman becomes essentially irrelevant, except to the extent that he holds a committee chairmanship, which really is the goal here -- to put it in the hands of a real Democrat. Seriously, Lieberman's embrace of McCain and his apparent plans to speak at the Republican convention in September really should disqualify him from being considered a true member of our caucus. You served a purpose, Joe, but now you must go.

And hey, how better to ensure that Lieberman's vote is irrelevant than to help us get to 60 senators not counting Lieberman. That means 10 new Democratic senators in 08. I think it's doable, especially if we support our Road To 60 Senate candidates.

The residents of the great state of Connecticut seem less than thrilled that their Senator, Joe Lieberman (Connecticut for Lieberman - I) has taken to touring the country in support of George Bush's third term. According to a new Quinnipiac University poll (6/26-29, n=2,515, MoE +/-2%):

Sen. Joseph Lieberman gets a 45 - 43 percent approval, down from 52 - 35 percent March 27 and his lowest score ever.

"Sen. Lieberman's approval rating has dropped below 50 percent for the first time in 14 years of polling, with nearly two-thirds of Democrats giving him low marks, probably because he is campaigning for Sen. John McCain," Dr. Schwartz said.

This includes 62% disapproval among Democrats in the state. As Markos pointed out last fall, Joe wouldn't have a shot at a rematch with Lamont. Fool me once, and whatnot.

John McCain surrogate Joe Lieberman didn't just play the fear card yesterday on Face the Nation, he played the full fear Pinochle set:

In describing the reasons he believes the Republicans' presumptive nominee for president would be better prepared than the Democrats' to lead the nation next January, Sen. Joe Lieberman said that history shows the United States would likely face a terrorist attack in 2009.

"Our enemies will test the new president early," Lieberman, I-Conn., told Face The Nation host Bob Schieffer. "Remember that the truck bombing of the World Trade Center happened in the first year of the Clinton administration. 9/11 happened in the first year of the Bush administration."

Craven. Yet, oddly, pundits and journalists don't seem to have a problem with what Joe said. Everyone seems to be too busy hand-wringing over Wes Clark's comments about McCain:

Rick Sanchez's lead-in to his next segment just now on CNN:

   "Wesley Clark tried to Swiftboat John McCain today."

I'm liveblogging. He goes on to say:

   "It will reverberate for weeks. Wes Clark tried to diss McCain's military record, that his service doesn't qualify him to be president."

Rick Sanchez is mad.

But what did Clark actually say?

"I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president."

But as the punditocracy goes after Clark today, I doubt we'll hear the rest of Clark's comments for context:

"I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces, as a prisoner of war...he has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee and he has traveled all over the world, but he hasn't held executive responsibility," Clark said. "That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded -- that wasn't a wartime squadron."

Clark didn't say McCain wasn't a hero and he didn't say his service wasn't patriotic. He simply pointed out that the experience McCain went through, as traumatic as it was, doesn't necessarily make him more qualified to be president.

So I predict we'll hear way more about Clark's comments than Lieberman's scare tactics. If you're watching, reading, or listening to news, what are you hearing? Anyone covering Joe's scare?

To the traditional media, playing the politics of fear like Lieberman did isn't taboo - it proves Joe's a Very Serious Person.

Update [2008-6-30 12:42:43 by Josh Orton]: Looks like someone might be off the VP list:

"As he's said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain's service, and of course he rejects yesterday's statement by General Clark," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

I've never written a diary, posted a comment, or even uttered a word that attacked Joe Lieberman.

To me, he's always been a bread-and-butter Democrat.  After all, he was our party's well-respected vice presidential nominee eight long years ago.  Even in the past few years, I respected that he transcended 'party' altogether--and I refused to join the bash-Lieberman train, even when I disagreed with him about the war on terror.  Even when I disagreed with him about the Democrats' ability to handle national security issues.  Even when I disagreed with him about the war on terror, the next seventeen times.

I have refused to bash him...until now.

At the Politico, Jonathan Martin pokes around a bit to examine a VP choice floated this weekend by Novak himself:

It remains a longshot, but Lieberman's name has been popping up as a veep prospect.  It almost has a Cheney-esque quality to it: you look around and then pick the guy who has been right in front of you all along.  And people who know McCain say that if he were liberated to pick whoever he wanted, politics aside, he'd love to tap his pal Joe.

The problem, of course, is that there would be blowback.

"The political consensus is that McCain couldn't get away with either, and he knows it," wrote Bob Novak in his Saturday column about McCain's inclination to look at both Lieberman and the pro-choice Tom Ridge.

When I floated the prospect to another prominent conservative, he didn't waste a moment before telling me what the reaction would be from the right-wing: harsh.

We can dream, right?

If McCain did choose Lieberman, it would be Joe's second run as a VP candidate in eight yars - albeit for different parties. And it would validate even further the netroots' work to bump Joe out of the party in Connecticut.

But besides the karmic appropriateness, Joe-as-VP would also be a terrible idea for Republicans: it weakens their party's brand, it further alienates their socially conservative base, and it shows desperation. They couldn't find a single eligible candidate from within their party? They had to go with a pro-choice former dem?

Lieberman's conservative position on the Iraq war is both his most vocal and least popular. Advertising your "moderate" bona fides through continued war hawkishness no longer helps him or his Republican allies.

Seriously, Lieberman has hitched his ride to this failed war, to this obstructionist senate minority and to this sad excuse for a Republican candidate and, unfortunately, has full confidence that nothing will be done about kicking him out of the caucus and stripping him of his committee chairmanship before November -- and probably not before January. When we count down to our 60 vote majority, let's remember, truly, we need to pick up 10 seats, not 9. We need to make this guy absolutely irrelevant.

From The Hill:

On a conference call with reporters arranged by the McCain campaign, Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, called the Democratic response to McCain's remarks "another partisan attempt to distort John McCain's words."

"To put it mildly, I'm disappointed by these reflexive attacks on what Sen. McCain said on the 'Today Show' this morning," Lieberman said. He added: "I regret these comments made today, and I hope we can get back to the facts." [...]

Lieberman said he finds it "most outrageous" to suggest McCain is out of touch.

You want to see what a real Connecticut Democrat looks like? Here's Jim Himes, challenger to Bush rubberstamp Chris Shays in CT-04, on McCain's comments today and the importance of bringing our troops home.

"John McCain's comments this morning are not only sorely out-of-touch, they are also hurtful to the families of troops serving in Iraq for whom nothing is more important than knowing when their loved ones will come home.

"If Chris Shays was serious about bringing our troops home, he wouldn't be co-chairing John McCain's campaign in Connecticut. Just like his party's standard-bearer, Chris Shays is deeply confused and out-of-touch when it comes to Iraq. In 2006 he promised voters he would support timelines, only to vote against them three times in 2007. Now, in 2008, he says he supports President Bush on Iraq and is working hard to elect an administration that clearly intends to keep American troops in harms way in Iraq for years if not decades.

"Connecticut families know we cannot afford a third term of the Bush-McCain-Shays policy on Iraq. It is long past time to give the Iraqi government a clear timeline for the full redeployment of American troops so we can start focusing on the challenges that face us here at home."

Check out Josh Marshall's excellent video about Lieberman's betrayal of Democrats (especially of Obama who, you'll recall, agreed NOT to campaign for Ned Lamont in 2006) and what we all can do to help nudge Democratic senate leadership to boot him from the caucus once our increased majority is sworn in.

ABC News ran the video above on their obnoxious and barely functional website, under the headline: Obama Dishes Tough Talk to Lieberman at http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex? id=5006126

Like many other people who oppose the war in Iraq, I usually think of Joe Lieberman as something like a worm with a sugary smile pasted on one end, so the idea of Obama dishing Lieberman some "tough talk" sounds good to me...

But every time I try to feel that party unity feeling about our presumptive nominee for President, something always goes wrong with the details: I couldn't hear the "tough talk," but I could see Joe Lieberman being pulled along sideways all the way off the Senate floor by a much younger and much larger Senator.

Obama shakes Lieberman's hand, and he never lets go. They walk off the Senate floor together holding hands, you might say, but Lieberman's right hand is extended awkwardly across his body, and it isn't much like the way young lovers hold hands as they stroll across a meadow.

The crucial moment for recognizing what's going on comes up about 16 seconds into the video, when Obama and Lieberman meet a woman in a pink jacket on their way off the edge of the screen.

Apparently the woman is trying to say something to Obama or Lieberman, and she reaches out to take Lieberman's hand, but he can't quite turn to face her, and as they brush past her, she takes an awkward step back.

This is a wrong moment. If Lieberman could turn, he would have turned, instead of brushing by sideways, but Obama wouldn't let him go, and it's very bad manners, at the very least.

The whole thing may look like "friendly contact" to Obama's devotees, but for me it shades into something more like physical compulsion, and I have to say...

The next time Obama wants to dance somebody off the floor of the United States Senate, I hope he has the balls to pick a more formidable partner than little old Joe Lieberman.