House Cleaning

Well, as I mentioned the other day, some of the GOP leadership is being cleaned out in DC. While Roy Blount 'resigned' his leadership position in the House, one can only imagine that it wasn't a totally voluntary resignation.

The other side of the aisle is doing some expected house cleaning too. Joe Lieberman; no longer needed to keep a Democratic Majority in the Senate; is likely to be stripped of his committee chairmanship shortly.

Joe pissed off the left by supporting Iraq. They thought they were rid of him when they organized to defeat him in the primaries two years ago, but they weren't, he won the general election as an independent.

That was very uncomfortable for Democrats, since they had to have his vote in their caucus to get control of the Senate, but hated the idea that he was even there. So they gave him a committee chair to keep his vote on their side of the aisle.

Now of course, it's different. The Democrats don't need him for anything, and of course, he supported John McCain for President, not Barack Obama. So, off to the scrap heap he goes in Harry Reid's new Senate.

Joe has been offered a spot in the GOP Caucus, though I doubt he'll take it. Unfortunately, for him, he still believes in enough Democratic ideals that he'll probably still give them his vote, though be asked for no input.

Much like McCain, Joe hasn't figured out how politics work today. It's no longer a gentleman's game, where you do what's best for country. Party is first and foremost, especially to the Democrats. If the GOP played by the Democrat's rules folks like Chuck Hagel, Olympia Snowe, and John McCain would never have had big committee chairmanships.

This will play out again in the House, where the Blue Dog's that Nancy Pelosi mollified over the last few years are tossed onto small crappy committees with no power. The ultra liberals she prefers will ascend to more powerful positions now that she has a big enough majority to ignore the Blue Dogs.