No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
Ah, Joe Lieberman – the right’s favorite Independent Democrat. You know, the Joe Lieberman who went around campaigning for McCain/Palin saying that Obama did not have the proper experience for the job of president. Do you remember in January, when there was a push by the left to remove Joe Lieberman’s chairmanship and Obama intervened to save it? Well, Joe Lieberman (who has already come out against the health care bill) is now paying Obama back:
Hey, so guess who is mulling new legislation to solve the alleged problem of Obama’s “czars”? Joe Lieberman!
He may even hold hearings on the czars, as the chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Since this will confer legitimacy on an attack that has mostly emanated from Glenn Beck and the hothouse right, it could prompt an “I told you so” chorus from those who argued that Lieberman should be stripped of his committee slots.
Leslie Phillips, a spokesperson for Lieberman’s committee, confirms by email that Lieberman’s legislation is “in the early conceptual stage.” She also said a hearing is in the works, with its schedule up the air until the committee can nail down witnesses.
Yep, this is the same committee who approved Michael Brown as FEMA director and never held any hearings on the Katrina disaster. But luckily he’s going to hold hearings on the completely bogus “czars” controversy. Smell the bipartisanship!
Tags: Joe Lieberman, President Obama
While I get your point about Lieberman being behind this, what about the Czar issue? I ask, because Feingold inquired about it directly to Obama a while back (I had commented with a link on it a good while ago…maybe more than a month or so). I wonder if there was any response? It was a well written, very contstructive inquiry with some criticism over the usage of Czar appointments.
The fact that he is right doesn’t matter. He is suppose to just fall in line. Byrd, Feingold and others have made this point and got only more Commissars. There is nothing wrong with future oriented legislation establishing the lines.
Please note that David A is in favor of more legislation and regulation.
of course, when it suits him that is
It is time to close the kitchen cabinet.
Do we really need to list all the “czars” that were created by the Republican Congress . . . AGAIN.
John Cole provides some context on the many “czars” in Presidential history.
Feingold had a hearing earlier this week and the WH did not attend, but WH Council sent a letter trying to explain the relationships of these policy people to their confirmed management. Feingold basically is working at chipping at one small piece of the Imperial Presidency which is fine, but you’d think that the way to do this is not exactly via hearings but to reduce the head count and dollars appropriated for all of these people. A thing that they can do, BTW.
That’s the difference between our perspective DV, you want to unleash government into our lives without restriction and I want to free the people from the heavy hand of government. The job of government is to guard our lives, liberty and property. When you let it go without the constitutional checks and balances it begins to absorb vital freedoms and becomes inefficient to boot. The cabinet method of government gives a clear chain of command. This way gives people two or more bosses with different objectives. It is bad management.
Is it wrong to want a government that does its job and is capable of doing so?
Cass, how do you know which ones should go or be reduced unless you have hearings?
Well maybe you could start from the notes the repub Congress had when BushCo had all of those Czars. Since they didn’t say anything at all about the number or responsibilities of that crew, I’m thinking that they already had alot of satisfactory info on those positions. So start from what was OK in the Bush admin and work from there.
Czar is a term lazy journoes use because they don’t want to type-out the person’s entire title. nothing more; nothing less.
but the retards (yes, retards) on the right flail about czars with the sole purpose to bring up emotions of communism, which makes no sense anyway since czars refer to a monarchy!
Am. I. Fucking. Wrong. Fools?
That whole speech about Constitutional checks and balances would have a whole lot more weight if it had been said during the Bush administration. The fact that Republicans only express respect for the Constitution when they are out of power makes it look a lot more like crass opportunism.