Reply #33: Things are going to be different with this administration. [View All]

[americanstranger]

Obama will, IMO, appoint a good number of Republicans to cabinet posts in his administration. This will help accomplish that which Bush talked a lot about but never really intended to do - 'change the tone in Washington.'

With an agenda that is advanced by a cabinet made up of Democrats and Republicans, I believe that such an agenda will stand a much better chance of being embraced by Democrats and some more moderate Republicans in both houses of Congress.

Sure, there will be a number of knuckle-draggers that will try to obstruct President Obama's agenda - there always will be, but they will look more and more like sour-grapes losers working against the best interests of the country. And the fact that Republicans will be helping Obama push the agenda will give cover for the few sane Republicans left to get on board with a lot of policy proposals.

We may not need 60 Dems. We may have enough thinking people to beat back a filibuster with the majority we have and a handful of Republicans.

This might be wishful thinking on my part. But I think that Congress, by and large, will want to be seen as actually solving the country's problems more than scoring cheap political points. And Lieberman will either want to be a part of that or risk losing his seat when he comes up for re-election.

I say take away his chairmanship and let him do what he wants. A pissy Lieberman with no juice in Congress will be a lot easier to manage than a Lieberman with a chairmanship and a grudge.

- D