Joementum or Joe Mama?

Sen. Joe Lieberman is a vexing political figure for the Democratic Party in that he regularly comes to the defense of the party's political nemeses while continuing to be a truly decent guy. His high-profile support for the Iraq war and the infamous (and bizarre) kiss from President Bush at the State of the Union have turned the left-wing blogosphere against him with a fury. Having the left-wing bloggers root against you is usually a good thing- thus far I don't believe they've helped a Democratic candidate win a significant race yet (Howard Dean, Francine Busby, Paul Hackett)- but the intraparty strife is worrisome.

It's especially worrisome because the left-wing bloggers seem to have no institutional memory of the Democratic Party prior to 1998. All they seem to remember is impeachment and the recent losses at the presidential level. And, in truly bizarre fashion, their inspiration has come not from those who appeal to their ideals, but from those whom they despise- Karl Rove and Tom DeLay. They pray at the altar of party discipline, believing that all Democrats should believe what they do and "fight" for their agenda. They don't realize that without Susan Collins and Chris Shays and Dianne Feinstein and Joe Lieberman, today's moderates, Democrats would wield ZERO influence over the political process.

Sirota, Kos and the rest of the blogging crowd fail to recognize that the extremes are often wrong on both politics and policy. The framers of the Constitution established the many checks and balances so as to ensure that compromise and consensus would steer the political process. Just because a bunch of radicals from Texas hijacked our government doesn't mean that we should hijack it back for our own agenda.

Moderates are frustrating and wishy-washy, but they've made many important contributions to our political system. Sen. Lieberman deserves another term.

Taking liberties with presidential power

An interesting debate is occurring among the DC chattering class and run-of-the-mill political junkies about the effort inside the Bush administration to dramatically expand presidential power. The nomination of Samuel Alito, who pathologically defers to the executive on all matters of dispute between the president and Congress, makes this issue of even greater importance. Coupled with the recent revelation of the far-reaching domestic surveillance program under way, a robust debate should take place. By now it's clear that the president broke the law in establishing the domestic surveillance program. The question is now whether he was right or wrong to do so.

There are differing arguments about whether the administration would have obtained the authority to conduct surveillance if it had sought the approval of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court judges. This clipmonkey will assume that the administration would NOT have been given the authority because there often isn't any evidence of an actual crime, but merely communications with suspected terrorists. On this matter I'm willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt. Indeed, if you are corresponding with Al Qaeda, I believe our intelligence agencies, with the support of the president, have a responsibility to find out what you're up to.

However, when an administration hides behind "executive privilege" in refusing to hand over documents related to its response to Hurricane Katrina (while everyone else is handing over even their most embarrassing bits of information), it becomes clear that this expansion of presidential power is not an effort to keep us secure. In fact, it is an effort merely to keep the jobs of Republicans in the administration and in Congress secure. This is not protecting us from terrorists. This is shameful.