Updated.
Joe Lieberman wants to kill health care reform by cutting it up into little pieces and letting it bleed to death in committees over the course of the next couple of years while the public and the Media are distracted by other things. Dick Lugar wants to kill it by putting it on a back shelf in a closet deep in the basement where it will pine away, neglected and forgotten.
The common ground between the two senior members of the Weasel Caucus is that either way health care reform dies without either of them having to go on record as voting to kill it.
Lugar probably knows Democrats aren't going to take his approach. He's just looking to be able to boast about how he was all for "moderation," "study," "thought," "prudence," and "thrift," and not for denying his constituents access to decent and affordable health insurance while also being able to boast to his Republican colleagues and corporate donors that he was with them all along. When push comes to shove, though, he'll cheerfully vote against anything and everything the Democrats try to pass, including all the little pieces Joe Lieberman claims to think stand a chance of bipartisan support.
Lieberman, though, is looking for a way not to have repeat his usual weasel's trick of having of it both ways. He's against reconciliation because if the Democrats take that route Lieberman will have to vote for or against. If the Senate leadership decides to try to pass any bills the usual way and Republicans filibuster, Lieberman could vote FOR the bill but AGAINST cloture. He's done this many times before. It's his way of getting credit for being for something he's really against and for being Mr Bipartisanship while he's at it.
I'm sure he'll pull this trick again, if he has no other choice. But he's probably been warned by Chuck Schumer that he might not be forgiven for it this time. His new plan of passing lots of little pieces of toothless legislation will let him vote with the leadership down the line while making sure that no meaningful reform happens.
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Update: There was more than self-serving political expediency in Lieberman's wish that health care reform take place in baby steps that won't get taken. As Dave Noon points out, Lieberman also managed to put himself on the wrong side of history by apparently accepting that it was ok that that it took over a hundred years for the Civil Rights movement to accomplish its major goals. Read Dave's post at The Edge of the West, Justice too long delayed is justice denied.
Also see Ezra Klein on Lieberman's Recession Excuse.
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