McCain midwifes Lieberman rebirth, plus: Dodd stomps Reid

Babies are so cute, with their wrinkly faces, oversized bald pates and whiny but often seductive (for some) ways. Joe Lieberman was officially reborn as a Republican today when he endorsed John McCain, who is conducting the most protracted fade in GOP primary history, for president. The political press have rekindled their love affair with the corkscrewed straight talker after a momentary lapse earlier this year, and they maintain a Brokeback Mountain-like addiction to Lieberman, so we can all look forward to another month of McCain Rebound stories, followed by nine months of vicious griping after he loses. “Perhaps only John McCain could have brought Americans together in this most divisive of election years…”

Meanwhile, Connecticut Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd has successfully resisted the Harry Reid-led push to pass an abominable update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Reid, ignoring Dodd’s hold on the bill that would have provided retroactive immunity to telecom companies that broke the law in cooperating with the Bush administration’s illegal electronic surveillance programs, created a situation in which only the threat of a genuine filibuster on Dodd’s part—taking to the Senate floor and holding it until his voice gave out or Reid folded—could forestall passage. Fortunately for you, me and the Constitution, Reid backed down, at least for a few weeks.

Dodd thus becomes the only sitting member of Congress among the Democratic presidential candidates to actually accomplish something in the runup to the primaries, a record that is likely to stand given that the holiday recess is at hand. The thrill of victory may be somewhat adulterated by the fact that it arrives as much at Reid’s expense as the administration’s—ideally, Democrats would not have to plow through their own leaders to accomplish this sort of thing—but it will probably give Dodd a nice boost going into next month, and perhaps it will provide the other candidates with some motivation to do good works likewise once Congress reconvenes next year. Clinton and Obama were absent from the debate, choosing instead to offer long-distance (and therefore meaningless) support as they continued to campaign in Iowa, and their no-show did not go unremarked. (Joe Biden, unable to find on short notice a Neil Kinnock speech appropriate to the occasion, didn’t show up either, but his absence did go unremarked, as would have his presence.)

Dodd wasn’t entirely isolated in his effort; Wisconsin’s Russ Feingold had his back in admirable fashion, as did a few others. But it was clear that had they not been successful in postponing the debate, many if not most of the Democrats present would have cast their votes in favor of the offensive legislation. The thousands of people who called Reid’s office to protest his muscular advocacy for a bad bill of which he says he disapproves will have to keep their dialing fingers limber for January, and spread the love to those of Dodd’s colleagues who look wobbly, or worse (CoughcoughJayRockefellercoughhack), on the issue.

Back to McCain and Lieberman for a moment. David Sirota offers a mercifully brief examination of the mendaciously stupid haze many Washington commentators slide into when Lieberman’s name is mentioned. In this instance the victim/perpetrator is the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, but it could as well be the Davids Broder or Ignatius or any of a dozen others.

Cillizza, true to form, offers not a single shred of evidence to support his claim that Lieberman “remains a respected figure among moderate and unaligned voters.” Why? Because, perhaps, such evidence really doesn’t exist. There has been very little public opinion data to substantiate such a definitive comment, and what polling exists actually contradicts it entirely.

As a Research 2000 poll just a few months ago shows, Lieberman gets just 38 percent support from independents in his own state in a rematch with businessman Ned Lamont. That is a massive erosion from just a year ago, and even a Washington pundit like Cillizza knows that 38 percent is not in the “respected figure” zone. When was the last time you heard about a candidate getting 38 percent of the vote and pundits calling them “a respected figure in the electorate?” Never.

Oh, and it’s not like there’s any proof that Lieberman is “respected” among voters in New Hampshire, as Cillizza says. Lieberman is the guy who got all of 9 percent of the primary vote in 2004.

Lieberman chairs the Senate governmental affairs committee, that chamber’s closest counterpart to Henry Waxman’s hyperactive crew in the House. Lieberman takes an entirely opposite approach from Waxman, using his hearing rooms as a pastoral retreat from the hustle and bustle of Senate life. And now that he has endorsed a Republican, one who has in deed if not invariably in word supported pretty much all of the excesses Waxman is attempting to unravel, the chances that Lieberman will do anything that might damage McCain’s prospects are nil.

He is, in other words, the most pointless committee chairman imaginable, surpassing even the hapless Rockefeller, whose dominion over the intelligence committee is one of the more tasteless running jokes pulled by the Senate leadership. Reid has little choice but to continue accomodating him, though, representing as he does the 51st vote for Reid’s ongoing tenure as majority leader, and the ongoing tenancy of better-than-nothing committee leaders such as Pat Leahy, whose judiciary hearings sometimes produce great theater and, much more rarely, good results. Reid could, however, make the accomodation much more tolerable by behaving more like a Democrat himself.

Keep the phone calls coming and maybe he’ll succumb to Stockholm Syndrome and begin to identify with his tormentors in his own party. As for Lieberman, we’re stuck with him one way or another for five more years, but if the 2008 elections go as well for Republicans in the Senate generally as they will for McCain, no one but those dozen or so lovelorn columnists will remember him.

You can drop a note of thanks to Dodd here.