McCain deeply regrets Lieberman decision to retire
Republican Senator John McCain has traveled the world as part of a “three amigos” group with Senate colleagues Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, and he is sad that Lieberman plans to retire when his term expires in 2012.
McCain told us in a telephone interview that Lieberman told him that after 40 years in politics, “every once in a while you just get a little tired.”
Lieberman was Democrat Al Gore’s vice presidential nominee in 2000. In 2008, he backed McCain over Barack Obama and campaigned for him extensively.
“He’s truly not only an independent spirit but he goes where he thinks it’s best for the country. When he supported me there was no upside to that politically, none. And I will consider it one of the great honors of my life,” McCain said.
McCain said that while Lieberman faced a tough re-election fight, he believed he could have won “because he has such a deep reservoir of goodwill in Connecticut.”
“I’m sure he’ll contribute enormously in the future. I’m sure he’ll be called on, on a lot of national security issues,” McCain said.
Photo credit: Reuters/Mike Segar (Lieberman announces he won’t seek re-election)
Obama transport security pick avoids Iraq contract pothole
President Barack Obama’s pick to oversee U.S. transportation security appears to have dodged a major pothole on the road to being confirmed by the Senate after assuaging concerns about a government contract his old firm won to provide interrogators in Iraq.
Retired Major General Robert Harding was under the microscope at the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday for his nomination to head the Transportation Security Administration, a job that has been filled on a temporary basis since Obama took office.
Harding spent more than three decades in the U.S. military, including a stint as deputy to the Army’s chief of intelligence and director for operations in the Defense Intelligence Agency. After retiring, he set up his own security consulting firm which he sold last year.
The top Republican on the panel, Maine Senator Susan Collins, grilled Harding about a $6 million contract his former company, Harding Security Associates, won from the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2004 to provide interrogators and debriefers in Iraq — the company had to reimburse the government nearly one-third of that amount.
Harding told the committee that he hired 40 people, but three months into the contract the government decided that it no longer needed the outside interrogators and debriefers and terminated the contract. One concern raised during an audit of the contract was that he tried to get about $800,000 reimbursed for severance he paid to the employees.
The two sides settled the case and Harding’s firm paid back about $1.8 million.
“I’m convinced that I made a mistake. This was our largest, and our most important contract. And in an effort to stay engaged with my client, in an effort to stay engaged with my employees and take care of them, in an effort to take care of my stakeholders, which is the Iraq support group, I lost sight of the fact that I also had to be cognizant of what was going on in my back room, in the accounting shop, in the contract shop,” Harding told the panel.
Healthcare critic Lieberman silenced in Senate
Senator Joe Lieberman, who has forced Democrats to jump through hoops on healthcare reform in recent weeks, was effectively told to be quiet and sit down on Thursday.
Comedian turned freshman Senator Al Franken gave the order while presiding over the Senate to a surprised Lieberman.
“I object,” Franken said, denying Lieberman the unanimous consent that he needed for “an additional moment” to complete his floor speech on healthcare.
“Really? Okay,” Lieberman told Franken sheepishly. “I don’t take it personally.”
Unanimous consent is routinely given to senators so that they can have a few more minutes to wrap up their remarks. But many Democrats have apparently wanted to tell Lieberman to hush in recent weeks.
That’s because the former Democrat turned independent has repeatedly forced them to change a healthcare bill to conform with his wishes.
Democrats need Lieberman’s vote to get to the 60 required to clear Republican procedural roadblocks and pass major healthcare legislation designed to bring down costs and provide insurance to millions of Americans.
Lieberman being denied shouldn’t come as a surprise. He said himself that if the bill came to the floor with a public option he would uses his position to keep the bill from being debated.
With such a plan already firmly in place in Lieberman’s mind, what does it matter if he is allowed to speak or not. He had no intention of furthering the discussion in order to come up with a working solution. He just didn’t want the public option because he is representing insurance people. And that’s as far as he thought it through.
He doesn’t want to help so he’s useless. He needs to shut up unless he’s got something of value to contribute.
Calls growing for Congress to investigate Fort Hood gunman
Amid the growing calls for congressional investigations into the Fort Hood rampage, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton is advocating a different approach — wait and see how investigations by the Army and the FBI progress.
“It is important that we get to the bottom of this incident, but we must be careful to proceed in a deliberate, studied manner that will not interfere with the ongoing criminal investigation by the FBI and the Army’s criminal investigative service, Skelton, a Missouri Democrat, said on Tuesday. “Right now, we need to avoid jumping to any conclusions and give the Army and the FBI a chance to do their jobs.”
Calls for lawmakers to find answers came almost immediately after 13 people were killed in a shooting rampage at the Army post last week.
The alleged shooter, an American-born Muslim Army psychiatrist, is said to have been in contact with an Islamist sympathetic to al Qaeda.
Another call came on Tuesday, this one from Rep. Howard McKeon, the senior Republican on the House Armed Services Committee. The California representative requested a thorough congressional investigation conducted in a way that would not compromise the FBI and Army probes.
U.S. government officials have declined to speculate about a possible motive and the suspect isn’t talking.
Let’s stop being politically correct and call a spade a spade. If Hasan strapped a bomb to his chest and blew himself up, we’d call him a terrorist. Instead he used a gun. Plain and simple, he’s a terrorist and may he burn in hell for eternity.
The First Draft: Democrats turn to Clinton in Senate healthcare push
Former President Bill Clinton is due to visit Capitol Hill today to talk healthcare reform with Senate Democrats and their independent allies.
The meeting’s important because Democrats have yet to find the 60 votes they need to stop Senate Republicans from blocking President Barack Obama’s signature domestic issue. House Democrats got their end of the job done over the weekend by passing landmark legislation.
Clinton’s presidency was overshadowed by his own failed bid to reform the healthcare system in the 1990s. But NBC said he could help sway Democrats wavering in the current debate, including Sen. Blanche Lincoln of his home state, Arkansas.
A big obstacle that Clinton, Obama and Senate Democrats face seems as old as human nature: people who will cooperate — if they get their own way.
This time, a small clutch of moderates want their own way on the so-called public option, a proposal to offer government supported low-cost health coverage that is anathema to Republicans and the insurance industry.
Some senators are categorical about what they want.
For independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut — a state long associated with insurance interests — opposition to the public option is a moral issue. “If the public option plan is in there, as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote,” he said at the weekend on Fox News. But his independent neighbor to the north, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, sounds like Lieberman’s polar opposite: “It would be outrageous to me, that when you have an overwhelming majority of Americans wanting a strong public option, that we do not deliver that.”
“why does’t the conservitives bring up all the bills that was rejected by a liberal congress. bills like haveing bank of america investigated fannie may investigated and of course acorn. the automob le industry all these things made democrats money so bring it up”
Why don’t the conservatives mention all of the bills that were rejected by a liberal congress; such as bills to have Bank of America and Fannie Mae investigated, along with Acorn and the automobile industry. These things should be revealed because they all made money for the Democrats.
Hope this helps!
The First Draft: US media’s Fort Hood coverage turns to militancy question
First came questions about whether anyone missed emotional signals that suspected Fort Hood shooter, Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was close to cracking. Now U.S. media say Congress wants to know if he was also veering toward Islamist militancy.
A preliminary review of Hasan’s computer has revealed no evidence of any connection to terror groups or conspirators, according to a report by CBS News.
But lawmakers have asked the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies to preserve documents on Hasan. That’s according to ABC News, which says the spooks believe he may have been trying to contact U.S.-born imam Anwar al Awlaki, who is based in Yemen and supports holy war against the West.
It’s not clear whether the U.S. military knew one of its officers was under intelligence surveillance, ABC said.
U.S. law enforcement and military investigators are also looking into associations between Hasan and the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia, in early 2001, about the same time Awlaki and two of the Sept. 11 hijackers were there, the Los Angeles Times reported. The mosque is one of the biggest in the United States and thousands of people go there for prayer services and other events.
Witnesses at Fort Hood told investigators that Hasan yelled “Allahu Akbar” — Arabic for “God is Greatest” — before killing 13 people and wounding another 30 last week. The 39-year-old psychiatrist was shot four times by police and remains hospitalized.
It is unclear what motivated Hasan and the Army’s chief of staff, General George Casey, is afraid the shooting spree could cause a backlash against Muslims in the military.
Yada.
Yada.
Yada.
Hindsight is always 20/20.
Foresight though isn’t, because it involves more than just having eyes. It requires having eyes that want to see. And ears that want to hear.
Since Candidate Obama first hawked the Iraq-to-Afghanistan switch-er-roo long con in the 2008 presidential debates, informed foresight should have told all that our military involvement in President Obama’s 2009 Afghanistan was no-win for those that would directly pay for it with their taxpayer money or worse yet, our service personnel with their lives.
So now hindsight wants to kick in after the Ft. Hood massacre by psycho whack-job muslim terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan. Well isn’t that just great.
As it’s currently shaking out though, this is like hitting something while driving along, wondering gee, what did I just hit, with eyes focused solely on the rear view mirror — as you continue driving along at uninterrupted forward speed and direction.
Who knew what and when and what they did or didn’t do re Hasan serves a useful purpose but isn’t going to change hindsight into foresight.
When you are doing something you shouldn’t be doing, in a place you shouldn’t be, you just can’t possibly get good enough at it — in this case identify psycho whack-job muslim terrorists before they do what a psycho whack-job muslim terrorist will do — to turn a no-win policy into anything other than a no-win policy.
Whether someone offs themselves exclusively by jumping off a bridge, or tries to force a suicide-by-cop, or in this case traitorously take out as many of their brothers and sisters in uniform as possible with them as part of solving their own existential dilemma, such reach that behavioral point by letting themselves get inextricably boxed in to that no-win behavior mode.
President Obama is likewise so boxed in, politically. Candidate Obama rode a team of duplicitous horses to election victory. Lead horse on that team was the Iraq-to-Afghanistan war of his necessity. If that weasel now makes with additional troops to Afghanistan, forget trying to understand Nidal Malik Hasan in hindsight and focus on foresight — to see President Obama is a Nidal Malik Hasan in the making, a thousand times over, AS WE SPEAK, IN REAL-TIME.
So why wasn’t Nidal Malik Hasan spotted as a bad apple and so handled? Short answer: The same reason that President Obama’s no-win Afghanistan war of his necessity isn’t CURRENTLY seen for what it is.
Politics aside, Al and Joe still friends
A lot has happened since the 2000 presidential race, when two Senate Democrats headed their party’s ticket in a losing campaign for the White House.
Al Gore, the former vice president and 2000 Democratic presidential nominee, went on to win a Nobel Peace Prize, an Oscar and a Grammy after his documentary on climate change.
His running mate, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, left the Democratic party to become an independent, which put him in a position of power player in the Senate. And now he’s a pivotal force as the congressional healthcare debate inches toward resolution.
Lieberman says he’ll join Republicans and block a final vote on a healthcare reform bill if it includes the public option.
Despite their political split, Gore told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Tuesday that he and his former running mate are still pals.
Any regrets about the “turbo boost” you gave to Lieberman’s career by picking him as your running mate — given that he’s changed his political affiliation and his current stance on healthcare? Maddow asked .
@Jack: the reason people wouldn’t like him is because he isn’t representing the people of his state, Joe has been serving his own ego since at least the Gore campaign.
Lieberman offers congrats to Obama, pushes bipartisanship
WASHINGTON – Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, previously a Democrat now an independent, bucked his colleagues a lot this year including in what some considered the ultimate betrayal — backing the Republican presidential hopeful, John McCain, and for the less than kind words he had for Democrat Barack Obama.
But after Obama’s victory, Lieberman issued a statement congratulating him on his “historic and impressive” victory.
There have been some questions about whether Lieberman might no longer be welcome in the Democratic caucus, but Sen. Charles Schumer said last month that that issue would be dealt with after the election.
“Now that the election is over, it is time to put partisan considerations aside and come together as a nation to solve the difficult challenges we face and make our blessed land stronger and safer,” Lieberman said in the statement. ”I pledge to work with President-elect Obama and his incoming Administration in their efforts to reinvigorate our economy and keep our nation secure and free.”
Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.
- Photo credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder (McCain and Lieberman at a rally in Colorado.)
Lieberman is the lowest sort of political worm – just the sort one would hope will become extinct under the bright ight of an honest government.
The Dems must strip him of his chairmanships. To kowtow to the worm now would demonstrate their own lack of spine and integrity. Toss him out of his chairmanships. There are plenty (well, a few) moderate Republicans who clearly have more intelligence and integrity (Olympia Snowe, for one) with whom the Dems can work. To maintain that the Dems ‘need’ Leiberman is ludicrous.
Let him crawl back under his rock.
Lieberman skips weekly lunch with irate Senate Democrats
(Corrected to reflect statement in last two paragraphs was by Reid’s spokesman, not Reid.)
WASHINGTON — Sen. Joseph Lieberman on Tuesday skipped the weekly luncheon meeting of congressional Democrats — many of whom denounce him as a turncoat for his support of White House contender John McCain at last week’s Republican National Convention.
A number of lawmakers have even said Lieberman of Connecticut might be stripped of his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in the new Congress next year if Democrats, as expected, increase their control of the Senate.
Lieberman, who refers to himself as an “independent Democrat”, has brushed off such talk. So has Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid — at least for now.
“His (Lieberman’s) approach is that he is going to do what he believes is right in support of John McCain, and let the politics play itself out,” said Marshall Wittmann, Lieberman’s communications director.
Lieberman, who eight years ago was the Democratic vice presidential nominee, could end up in McCain’s Republican administration if he defeats Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama in November’s White House election.
At the Republican convention, Lieberman criticized Obama and praised McCain as “the best choice to bring the country together and lead America forward.”
I suppose Mr. Telhomme, we can all ( Mr. Lieberman included ) breathe a big sigh of relief in that no one is likely to confuse Barak Obama with Jesus Christ.
Lieberman: Obama shows “inexperience” over Georgia
TEANECK, N.J. – Former Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joe Lieberman slammed Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday over the Russian invasion of Georgia and said that the Democrat still wasn’t experienced enough for the White House. “We’ve got a real clear choice to make. And I say it respectfully to Sen. Obama because he’s a gifted young man. But he’s not ready to be president on Jan. 20th of 2009,” Lieberman, of Connecticut, told a fund raising event for Republican hopeful John McCain.
“As the Russians move into Georgia as aggressors, and if you read the statements from the beginning, from Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama, one had a kind of moral neutrality to it that comes I think from inexperience.
“The other’s — Sen. McCain’s — was strong and clear and principled and put America where America always want to be, on the side of freedom,” he said while introducing McCain.
Lieberman sits in Congress as an Independent after he lost the Connecticut Democratic primary election in 2006 but won actual re-election running as a third party candidate.
Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.
- Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Lieberman applauds McCain)
You are all incorrect. Approximately 17% of the breakaway population is Russian, the rest are two other groups with the predominance being Geogian. I disagree with both Obama and McCain on their response to this. Georgia did initiate this, and the Russians moved in to protect their “people”. I wish America was so decisive then perhaps we would have far fewer conflicts and countries like Iran who are willing to taunt, challgene and antagonize us. I guarantee now that other nearby countries will think twice before they screw with the Russians again. Now if California hispanics decide to join Mexico in a few years will we happily say well it is their right? I think not. Georgia also has a right to protect their own too which do make up a majority. This is far more complex than the press makes it out to be and only if you have been there like I have and know the people will you truly understand the dynamics. But the real bottom line is we and nato supported Kosovo in their bid to separate from Serbia, even though the ethnic cleansing began with ethnic albanians who were illegal aliens in Kosovo and killed Serbs, we supported their independence so why can’t the Russians do the same. I guarantee that is their position. We screwed up in Kosovo and let the Muslims once again brutalize serbs and when the Serbs responded and kicked their asses, we went in and supported the initial agressors. Here Georgia was the initial agressor, and we are condeming the Soviets for responding. As you can tell I am speaking for both sides here, that is because their is no clear right or wrong, except what we did in Kosovo which was clearly wrong.
