Joe Lieberman Double Crossed Reid Over Healthcare-- What Was Emanuel's Role?

Two shills of the Medical Industrial Complex

Harry Reid says Lieberman-- who he may finally realize is a Republican plant in his caucus-- "double-crossed me." What Reid still doesn't realize is that Rahm Emanuel was probably in on it. Reid's instinct was to stand up to Lieberman and his GOP cronies and let them filibuster. "Let's not do what he wants. Let the bill just go down," he said. And along came Rahm. The sleazy Wall Street operator "arrived at Reid’s office not long afterward-- casually dressed, a cup of coffee in one hand-- and after a brisk meeting, a decision was reached: Reid would abandon his compromise, which was intended to appease proponents of a government-run insurance plan."

The concession would not sit well with a lot of Democrats, not to mention the powerful constituency of union voters in Nevada, where Reid is up for re-election in November. But there was little discussion. Reid and Emanuel are exemplars of the just-get-it-done style of legislating. As it turned dark outside, Reid began pulling senators aside in the lobby just off the Senate floor, speaking in a strained whisper as he presented the case in characteristically pragmatic terms. “I’m with you; I’m for you,” he told Tom Harkin of Iowa, one of the Senate’s traditional New Deal Democrats, who was pained that the public option was dying.

“Harry has a very good way of sort of bringing you back to reality,” Harkin told me a few days later, “this wonderful way of shrugging his shoulders and saying: ‘If you can get Lieberman to vote with you, fine. Otherwise, chalk it up and move on.’ He calmed me down.”

What more has to happen for Lieberman to be kicked out of the Democratic caucus? Connecticut Democrats denied him renomination as their Senate candidate because of his conservative stance on issue after issue. He then ran against the Democratic nominee with the assistance of Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and the Republican Party. Last year he actively campaigned against Obama and Democrats running for Congress. He voted for McCain and betrayed Rove over the McCain vice president pick. This year, after Obama and Reid brought him back into the fold he proved that everyone who ever said "he's with us on everything but the war" was proven untruthful or naive as Lieberman turned out to be against them on everything but the war! Last week he and McCain were in Israel undermining Obama's foreign policy.

By double-crossing Reid, he wrecked the healthcare reform legislation and drove a potentially deadly wedge between Obama and the Democratic Party grassroots. He may even wind up costing Reid his Senate seat. When will they learn? Anyone want to guess?


UPDATE: On The Other Hand...

If Lieberman is your kind of Democrat and if you live in New York, do I have someone here you are going to absolutely fall in love with. Here's a younger and more reactionary version of Joe Lieberman: