1. Joe Lieberman
Lieberman is not a Democrat in any real sense of the word (he is technically an 'independent Democrat', but that is still a stretch.) The junior United States Senator is a foreign policy hawk and a fiscal conservative, remaining liberal on only a few token issues (abortion, gay rights, etc). Lieberman was a vociferous supporter of the war in Iraq, threatening Democrats if they didn't support it and hyping up the non-existent threat from Iran (a country that spends the same amount in a year on its military as the U.S does in a week in Iraq). Lieberman is the quintessential corporate shill, selling his soul to the pharmaceutical companies and defense contractors while painting himself as a 'moral' Democrat, mostly because he doesn't cheat on his wife (see his outrage over Monica Lewinsky) and believes in blowing up Arabs whenever possible. Supporting John McCain was one thing, but breaking a pledge not to go negative on Obama was completely unforgivable. The only reason Joe is still a Democrat is because his party is almost as spineless as him, and won't throw him out for fear of appearing too liberal.
2. Mark Penn
It's hard to find a kind word about Mark Penn, CEO of PR company Burson-Marsteller and chief strategist of Hillary Clinton's campaign. Penn is about as greedy as they come in the modern era of political hackery and corporate corruption, and Penn has his fat little fingers in about as many dodgy pies as humanly possible.
Burson-Marsteller has represented stellar companies like Blackwater and Countrywide, and lobbied hard for Free Trade agreements that have wrecked the lives of millions of poor people. While Hillary Clinton went on an anti NAFTA campaigning jaunt throughout the Midwest, Penn was busy promoting a free trade agreement between the U.S and Columbia at the behest of leading human right's violator and president of Columbia, Alvaro Uribe. So corrupt was Penn, that he had to resign from Clinton's campaign (never known for its purity), and publicly apologize for the clear conflict of interest. In terms of strategy, Penn exemplifies the slash and burn politics of Karl Rove, using anything and everything to win. He wanted to use Obama's foreign upbringing during the primary, focusing on his lack of 'American values.' He wrote in a strategy paper:
"All of these articles about his boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii are geared towards showing his background is diverse, multicultural and putting that in a new light.....
It also exposes a very strong weakness for him -- his roots to basic American values and culture are at best limited. I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values."
We've not heard much from Penn in the political arena since, and hopefully it will stay that way. He'll no doubt continue to destroy the lives of poor people in the corporate world, but his stock as a political consultant was damaged badly after the Clinton debacle. Penn is not obsolete, but with operatives like David Axelrod and David Plouffe taking center stage, his days are seriously numbered.
3. Harry Reid
When the Democrats took power in 2006, they were elected by war weary citizens that were fed up with President Bush and the Neo Conservatives. Despite his position as Senate Majority Leader, Reid failed spectacularly to reduce war funding or establish a firm time timetables for troop removal from Iraq. Reid showed the cojones of a neutered kitten, and has spent the last two years backing down to the Bush Administration instead of doing what he was put in power to do: stand up, and stop the war. When the effort to put timetables for withdrawal in the war funding bill failed to override Bush' veto, Reid and other members of Congressional leadership caved and gave Bush all the money he asked for in the first place. Amazingly, Reid didn't even push for a compromise. Should Obama follow a more centrist agenda than he promised during his campaign, you can bet Reid won't do anything to hold him accountable.
4. Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi finds herself on this list for many of the sames reasons as Harry Reid. Failing to enact a serious timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, as well as repeated caving to the Bush Administration's war efforts, Pelosi also refused to seriously consider impeaching President Bush. Pelosi argued her role as Speaker of the House was to "try to bring a much divided country together," and that "impeachment would be divisive.". She believed that Congressional Leaders would not be able to further their Democratic agenda in the midst of an impeachment process, regardless of the overwhelming evidence that serious crimes had been committed. Representative Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment that asserted directly that impeachable offenses (crimes) had been committed. These crimes include taking a nation to war based on lies, the deaths of a million Iraqis (constituting a war crime), illegal wiretapping, rendition, torture, and illegal detention. If impeachment can't take place because it's politically inconvenient, it begs the question as to whether or not the Legislative Branch still serves as a check and balance on the Executive Branch. According to Pelosi it can't, and as a consequence, her name will go down as one of the most ineffective Speakers in history.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-cohen/ten-democrats-who-should_b_147167.html
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