Making The Rounds

Reaction this morning to news that Joe F'ckin Lieberman has torpedoed Obamacare has been greeted with anger, depression (and undisguised glee from the Wingers), but not a single person is surprised.  Clearly, that's the lesson here.  What motivated Joe?  A combination of revenge against liberals for being primaried out of the party in 2006, and Obama and Harry Reid enabling Lieberman to screw the party over at will.

Chris Bowers, Open Left:

Nothing Lieberman is doing would be possible without the ongoing support of the majority of the Democratic caucus.  If Democratic Senators wanted to punish Lieberman for his consistent transgressions against the party, they could.   If Democrats wanted to use reconciliation, and just circumvent him altogether, they could do that to.  But they are not going to do either.

Digby, Hullabaloo:

When Reid said "Joe Lieberman is the least of my problems" he was waving a red flag in his face. It's all about him. And he will not be ignored. And he will not vote for anything that liberals want, period. I don't know why they thought it would be any different. He's a sanctimonious, petty, vindictive egomaniac. But then, he always has been.

Ezra Klein, WaPo:

To put this in context, Lieberman was invited to participate in the process that led to the Medicare buy-in. His opposition would have killed it before liberals invested in the idea. Instead, he skipped the meetings and is forcing liberals to give up yet another compromise. Each time he does that, he increases the chances of the bill's failure that much more. And if there's a policy rationale here, it's not apparent to me, or to others who've interviewed him. At this point, Lieberman seems primarily motivated by torturing liberals. That is to say, he seems willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score. 

Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight:

Indeed, I think you can make a plausible case with Lieberman -- not so much Nelson -- that his objective really is to make liberals suffer, especially the (online) progressives who supported the Ned Lamont campaign. The br'er rabbit compromise didn't really accomplish that objective -- it didn't force liberals to suffer much, if at all.

Josh Marshall, TPM:

What's most telling about Lieberman isn't his positions, which are not that much different from Sen. Nelson's and perhaps Sen. Lincoln's. It's more that he seems to keep upping the ante just when the rest of the caucus thinks they've got a deal.

It's painfully clear that Lieberman has now fully exacted his revenge, having basically scuttled the compromise and declaring that no bill will pass -- indeed, no bill will even get a vote -- with anything resembling a public option, period.  He felt like the Dems screwed him with Ned Lamont.  Now he's screwed the Dems, Obama, the Senate, and most importantly the liberals who tried to get rid of him in one stroke.

And he will not suffer a single consequence for it.  What's Obama going to do to the guy who has singlehandedly destroyed his entire domestic agenda and all but assured the failure of Obamacare?  Nothing, of course.

And we lose again.  Millions of Americans will continue to lose their insurance and die when they become ill, bankrupt their families, or both.  All to serve one man's bruised ego.

Your move, 11-dimensional chess grandmaster Obama.  Your move.