He warned that if the Dems stripped L of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security committee, in retaliation for L's disgusting actions against President-elect Obama, that L might become "embittered" and bolt to the Republicans, or even might retire, allowing Connecticut's Republican governor to appoint an even more right-wing successor.
Digby, whom I respect a lot, thinks this shows Bayh's spinelessness:
Bayh was just embarrassing. He's going to have to pop a fistful of viagra
and watch some "24" just to persuade himself that his testes are still descended
after that pathetic performance.
This reminds me of a phrase coined privately by your friendly Burning Bush bloggers a few years ago: the "After-Dinner Democrat."
During the Clinton years, there was a certain brand of "moderate" Democrat who liked to describe self as a "fiscal conservative who was liberal on social issues." This was the type of Dem who was happy to listen to constituents pressing issues like wage stagnation, the war on drugs, or health care reform, only after their latest black-tie dinner with corporate lobbyists. "After dinner."
Lieberman and Bayh both fell into this camp, so it's not surprising to see Bayh waffling now. Poll-tested, wussified, After-Dinner Dems aren't really about anything anyway.
But Bayh is probably speaking from some inside knowledge of the behind the scenes negotiations going on right now about L's chairmanship. My reading of it was that L has actually threatened to retire or screw the Dems in some blatant way in the Senate. And that the Dems have told him he must issue a heartfelt public apology to Obama, and behave from here on out, to keep his chair. Bayh repeated several times last night that the Dems could remove L at any time from his spot.
So here's my take: at this point L is the ultimate lame duck. CT voters, both R and D, hate his guts. He has no chance of being re-elected in 2012. Thus he has become a useful idiot, first for McCain and Bush, and now potentially for Reid and Obama. Everyone knows this. The Dems are playing a major realpolitik game here, chancing that looking like punks right now will pay off down the road in close votes.
The Dems think they get L: even though he's an ideologue on foreign policy, L's own political career is more important. If he thinks he can advance himself, he might be cornered into doing the right thing for the next few years. This is playing with fire, but it might work.
To be clear: I despise this guy. Every time some pampered pundit uses the word "Democrat" to describe him, I cringe: he isn't a Democrat. He's scum. But if we can use him for something good in the next session, I'll live with it. If it blows up in the Dems' faces, and he embarrasses Obama in some stupid way, or helps torpedo health care, economic, or forpol legislation, I'll be sick.
BB
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