The Danger Within-- Reactionary Democrats In The House And Senate

Earlier today-- in a discourse about grinning and bearing Obama's selection of Rahm Emanuel-- not just accepting but trusting that Obama is doing the right thing-- I mentioned how I trusted Obama all through the election and watched him make questionable decisions that turned out to be the right decisions. Only once did I lose it and decide I couldn't go along with him. That was when the campaign decided to leak that they were considering reactionary Indiana Senator Evan Bayh as VP. Nothing on God's earth would ever, under any circumstances, get me to cast a vote for Birch Bayh's horrendous offspring. Look at the voter record of the Senate's bottom of the barrel (above)-- the 6 from the Democratic caucus who voted most frequently for the Bush agenda.

And, predictably, it was Bayh who asked that Democrats welcome Joe Lieberman back into the fold-- the same Joe Lieberman who said America wouldn't survive an Obama presidency and the same Joe Lieberman who campaigned for and raised money for Republican senators Susan Collins and Norm Coleman.

Bayh said Lieberman may have “perhaps crossed the line” in questioning Obama’s patriotism. But he maintained, “I think everybody understands that supporting your friend [McCain] is perfectly legitimate” and that “we should have a spirit of forgiveness with regard to Joe Lieberman and reconcile and move forward.” Presented with some of Lieberman’s more notorious comments, Bayh countered, saying Lieberman “votes with the majority of Democrats, a vast majority of the time.”

That isn't true, not on difficult substantive matters-- for either Lieberman or Bayh (middle column on the chart), Bayh being even worse than Lieberman!

Reid told Lieberman he'd have to give up his chair of the Homeland Security Committee-- which he ran abysmally and exactly the way a Republican would have run it, protecting Bush's ass. Lieberman refuses to give it up-- even though Reid offered him the chairmanship of the Veteran Affairs Committee, an insult to every fighting man and woman who ever served the country-- and says he'll start caucusing with the Republicans if he's forced to step down from his chairmanship.

Bayh isn't the only Lieberman apologist in the Democratic caucus and I get a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach that if Reid calls a vote, the cowardly and innately conservative majority will vote to make believe nothing ever happened.

Over on the House side, progressive champion Henry Waxman is challenging notorious corporate tool John Dingell for Dingell's job as Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce. Dingell has lined up two dozen of the most reactionary Blue Dogs in the Democratic House caucus to help him keep the job and continue to serve the corporate interests he's been serving for most of his career, right-wing Democrats like Heath Shuler (NC), Mike Ross (AR), John Tanner (TN), Jim Matheson (UT), Bart Stupak (MI), Allen Boyd (FL), John Barrow (GA), Baron Hill (IN) Charlie Melancon (LA), Ellen Tauscher (CA), Edolphus Towns (NY)... basically all worthless reactionary hacks. I was very sad to see two of the progressive freshmen we just helped elect, Michigan's Mark Schauer and Gary Peters, get sucked right in with the worst crowd in Congress. Sigh.