If former Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Baines Johnson was still around today, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) would not be holding health care hostage. Droopy Joe would be singing soprano in the choir.
It's long past time for Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) to ask, "WWLBJD?"
What Would Lyndon Baines Johnson Do ... with Joe Lieberman?
We all know the answer: by now, Joe would be an aging eunuch, looking around to find out which wall his proverbial drooping manhood had been nailed to.
If Harry Reid had some LBJ in him, Joe would not be Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. And if President Obama had some LBJ in him, Joe would find it very hard to get anything done on his pet projects in Connecticut.
Just imagine if a hypocritical, back-stabbing 1960s Lieberman had told LBJ that he was going to hold hostage the creation of Medicare or Medicaid or the Civil Rights Act of 1964 until LBJ met Lieberman's demands.
Ha. You could have sold tickets to that conversation.
First, LBJ might have just laughed and acted like Joe was kidding. Then he would have tried to charm him. But if Joe didn't back up very quickly and completely, LBJ would have gripped Joe's jacket lapel, pulled him close, and leaned that huge body and intense face into Joe's suddenly shrinking persona.
And he would have asked, "Joe, do you like that committee chairmanship?"
"Oh, God, no," Droopy Joe would have wailed. "Not my chairmanship."
Then LBJ would have told Joe that if he ever wanted another federal dollar to be spent in Connecticut, he might want to reconsider his game playing.
If Joe still didn't back up, LBJ would have flashed that big Texas smile and told him to have fun living in the wilderness.
And LBJ would have already had Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and all the blue dogs whipped into line. Along with a few Republican senators.
"Heel," LBJ would say. And the blue dogs would heel.
Of course, by now, Joe would have already been in the wilderness. Imagine what LBJ would have done if a 1960 Joe Lieberman had backed Nixon-Lodge against Kennedy-Johnson or a 1964 Lieberman had backed Goldwater-Miller against Johnson-Humphrey.
"Joe who?" LBJ would be saying today.
Yes, Harry Reid needs to ask, "WWLBJD?"
"LBJ would have gripped Joe's jacket lapel, pulled him close, and leaned that huge body and intense face into Joe's suddenly shrinking persona."
What's ironic, is we have already seen Obama do this to Joe. remember in the senate?
But, Obama and his staff have no principles that they consider worth fighting for-that's why they are willing to make any and all deals.
Obama and Lieberman, clinton, Rahm are all DLC best buddies.
the DLC democratic leadership council, corporate bribed fake dems.
Vote for the real Liberals, the "Progressive Caucus", Kucinich, Dean, Grayson, MoveOn picks.
Get Candidates to take the Pledge:
Outlaw all political contributions,
They are Bribes.
Bring Democracy to the USA.
What would John Wayne do?
Or take a page from the GOP playbook...... they don't allow their politicians to deviate from the party line one inch. Even though they are fundamentalist corporate whores, I have to admire their effectiveness and organization.
First he would reach out to the Republicans and get them on board.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed with a 82% of the Republicans backing it.
Obama has not done that.
Obama could find a cure for cancer and republicans would make up excuses to oppose and criticize it.
The modern republican party is much more of a cult than the GOP of Johnson's era.
In fact, LBJ probably would have made some anti-Semitic remark and Joe would be a martyr.
Lawsuits would have been filed by Connecticut Tax-Watch groups to protest the unfairness.
It's easy to be a legislative thug when 24/7 news stations aren't following your every move.
LBJ would be powerless to mess with Joe.
While he certainly would have done something about Lieberman, he wouldn't have descended into bigotry and prejudice to do it. That would have been the tactics of a Richard Nixon, who constantly railed against the liberal political activism of Jews.
It's easy to blame the media for politicians not having the courage of their convictions but 24/7 news coverage is no excuse for our elected leaders not to do what they promised.
Republican Warren Knowles telling how he had won the governorship over Proxmire somewhat before described a "carpet bagger" and "ivy leaguer" from the east who was married to a Rockefeller, and got the question,"Did you choose him, yourself?" This changed when Proxmire finally entered the Senate.
Proxmire was a character and a perpetual campaigner. Maybe everybody in Wisconsin shook his hand at some point.
We can forget about Reid or President Obama using those tactics. They are "bred and broken" Dems in the finest tradition of today's Democratic party. I really hate to say that because I'm a Democrat. But, it's true.