Obama Gets Hazed

Obama Gets Hazed

UPDATE: Steve Clemons has a must read post on Senator Primadonna's (aka John McCain) anger flame out… let me add this time over \”Why We Fight.\”

It's nothing but a hazing.

Everyone knows what happens when you're new in a fraternity. You have to go
through a right of passage. Some are just silly pranks perpetrated on a pal,
but others go to extremes, into full-blown hazing. Don't look now, but Senator
Obama just got his. Senator Clinton got the golden gavel for keeping her head
down and doing the most grunt work during her freshman term. Senator Obama just
got hazed.

Matt Stoller over at MyDD has been writing about this since it all began. Interesting
to learn that Joe Lieberman was also in the meeting with McCain and Obama. Being
a cynic on all things Lieberman, when Stoller wrote of Lieberman's choices I
got that funny feeling you get when you know this is going to turn south.

Lieberman can call out McCain on his partisan slash-and-burn strategy, and buttress Obama's claim to bipartisanship. Or he can participate in the smear and ask both sides to calm down, even though this attack is entirely one-sided and it is very clear that Obama is seeking a bipartisan good ethics bill. MyDD

Well, that's indeed what happened today on Imus, according to
others. I didn't see it. Lieberman ended up saying he hoped it was
a one-day story, when the McCain-Obama sparring had already tripled that count.
But that's not the kicker Stoller presents. Lieberman later \”bragged about
his work with McCain on some legislation,\” while offering that Obama wished
he'd been \”clearer\” in his letter to the Primadonna Senator from Arizona.
Lieberman can't bear to be outside the big club, even if that club is controlled
by Republicans.

Why am I recounting this story? Because Senator Joe Lieberman
just helped Senator
John McCain haze a freshman Democratic Party senator who also just so happens
to be one of
the rising stars on our political firmament, which we knew the moment he spoke at the 2004 convention.

Senator Lieberman, yet again, did not come to the aid of a fellow
Democrat who is rejecting Senator McCain's version of what went down. Lieberman
could have said that he thinks Senators McCain and Obama misunderstood each
other, staying fairly neutral, but that it's unfortunate Senator McCain got
so personal in his letter to Senator Obama, because there is no doubt that he
did.

Writes McCain, \”I understand how important the opportunity to lead your party's effort to exploit this issue must seem to a freshman Senator, and I hold no hard feelings over your earlier disingenuousness. Again, I have been around long enough to appreciate that in politics the public interest isn't always a priority for every one of us. Good luck to you, Senator.\” – Hotline

Instead, Joe Lieberman let John McCain put on a full court and
very public political hazing of the freshman senator. The message could not
have been clearer: you're just a new senatorial pledge. However, the Republican
message is quite different: Obama is dangerous to us and we have to hurt him
in the public's eye early, often and deeply.

There's no other way to look at it. Senator Barack Obama got hazed
by McCain, then Joe Lieberman helped complete the job. Because you just don't
back McCain, who clearly went off half-cocked, as opposed to supporting one
of the Democratic Party's rising stars. Lieberman wants to be part of the in
club that controls Congress more than he wants to fight for members of his own
party, even when the Republican you're backing is wrong.

Senator Joe Lieberman has made his choice, so there's really
only one thing left to do.