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Some steps forward, giant step back

An Open letter:

Dear Senator Dodd:

I really wish you all the best. That’s why I wrote that resolution for which you thanked me so warmly at the event in Groton this past July.

But you make it so hard. The knock is that you’ve lost touch; that you’ve been in Washington too long. That’s one knock, anyway.

Lately you’ve tried. You’ve done good work on health care substance. You’ve made the right noises about credit cards. You’ve reached out to the folks back home.

But seriously, you need some folks back here in Connecticut you can call and talk to about what people back here are really thinking. You have a primary coming up, which you’ll probably win, but you won’t do yourself any favors if you turn off enough good Democrats to just squeak by.

Had you talked to anyone with their finger on the pulse among us real Democrats, you would never have said this about Joe Lieberman’s proposed treachery:

But Lieberman’s fellow Connecticut senator, Democrat Chris Dodd, who faces a tough reelection fight in 2010, dismissed the idea that Lieberman would incur any retribution.

“No, no, no. People are going to be all over the place,” he said when asked if Lieberman should be punished. “The idea that people are going to be reprimanded because somehow they have a different point of view than someone else is ridiculous. That isn’t going to happen.”

As Yoda might say: “Tone deaf he is”. We don’t necessarily need the red meat that Republicans serve up to their base, but that doesn’t mean we’re willing to eat shit. Many of us actually really care about health care. We understand that the public option is a poor substitute for a single payer system, but we also understand that no public option, or a weak public option, will make any health care bill into a giveaway to the insurance industry.And as Rachel Maddow demonstrated last night, Wall Street knows it too. We also understand that Lieberman’s professed reasons for opposing the public options are a mixture of bullshit and lies. We actually care about health care more than we care about whether you continue to occupy a seat in the U.S. Senate, or about your relationship with turncoat Joe.

We see Mitch McConnell putting out the word to his troops that a vote for cloture is verboten, and then we see that you are greenlighting Joe Lieberman’s treachery. The contrast is stark and it doesn’t sit well. In one minute you did more harm to the cause of health care than anything you might have done to help the cause in your committee. A closed mouth or a no comment would have been far more palatable, and probably more strategically useful.

It boggles the mind that you and your fellow Democrats got no prior commitments from Lieberman regarding exactly this contingency; it’s not like no one could have predicted it. It’s even worse when you grant a pardon before the crime.

Enacting a health care program that is not a sham will enhance your re-election prospects. Coddling Joe Lieberman won’t, particularly if by doing so you torpedo health care. If we end up with another Republican Senator from Connecticut, your supporters like me will be disappointed. Joe Lieberman will be ecstatic, make no mistake about it. It’s time for you to put the interests of Connecticut ahead of Joe Lieberman’s.


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