Bill Manzi.com

It looks like Joe Lieberman is going to manage to stay as the chair of the Homeland Security Committee under a plan being floated by Senators Chris Dodd and Ken Salazar. Dodd and Salazar will propose a milder sanction against Lieberman, such as the stripping of a sub-committee chairmanship that is less important to all. From the Washington Post:

A pair of Senate Democrats will offer a compromise plan today to sanction Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) for his support of the Republican presidential ticket but allow him to keep a key committee chairmanship and remain in the party caucus.

Senators and aides said yesterday that Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) and Ken Salazar (Colo.) will present a plan at a caucus meeting that would strip Lieberman of a low-profile subcommittee chairmanship, possibly one on global warming. But Lieberman would retain the gavel of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The actions of President-elect Obama in endorsing Lieberman’s continued tenure appear to have helped Joe to dodge the proverbial bullet here. It does send a pretty poor message about consequences to keep Lieberman in the Chair of that Committee, and will be pointed to by future “apostates” who will seek absolution for outrageous actions against the Party. The vote by the Democratic Steering Committee that will formally deal with this issue occurs today.

President elect Barack Obama, in making the Democratic weekly radio address, has placed this talk on you tube, a nice innovation. I have placed the radio talk here. What do you think of his first presentation?

President elect Barack Obama is begining to make some high level appointments to his administration. From Chris Cilizza over at “The Fix” at the Washington Post:

The transition announced this morning that Pete Rouse, Obama’s Senate chief of staff, will become a senior adviser to the president. Rouse is a longtime senior to former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) for whom he worked on Capitol Hill for nearly two decades.

• Jim Messina, another Hill veteran, will serve as a deputy chief of staff in the Obama Administration. Prior to joining the Obama campaign in mid-June, Messina served as chief of staff to Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.); Messina also has run a number of campaigns including Baucus reelection bids in 1996 and 2002. Messina is currently the director of personnel for the transition.

• Mona Sutphen was also named a deputy chief of staff this morning — bringing a long and deep foreign policy &eaccutte;sum&eaccutte; to the new administration. Sutphen was a foreign service officer during the 1990s and served on the White House Security Council from 1998 to 2000.

And Obama has apparently named the counsel to the President as well.

The Post’s Mike Shear and Anne Kornblut are reporting on 44 that Greg Craig will be Obama’s White House counsel, according to an individual involved with the transition.

The Obama team begins to take shape. When will we get that Secretary of State announcement?

As Harry Reid continues to struggle with no Republican support for a bailout of the big three an interesting Republican offer has been made. It appears that President Bush might be willing to sign off on a package that would convert the $25 billion dollar package voted for retooling the automakers operations to upgrade fuel standards if Congress simply waived off those provisions. In effect the President would approve of converting those funds dedicated to a specific purpose to some form of unrestricted aid to the big three. The Democrats have rejected this offer, as they continue to believe in retooling the industry.

I continue to believe that unrestricted aid to the big three will only delay the day of reckoning and will likely result in a large loss to the taxpayer. But were I for this proposal I would urge my Democratic colleagues to accept this Republican proposal, in light of the stated urgency of the financial condition of the big three. Then I would suggest filing another exact replica of the just altered bill in the new session of Congress, with a Democratic President and larger Democratic majorities. The logic is obvious, since the “green auto bill” can wait a bit longer, while the financial condition of the big three requires more immediate action. Politically it would place the Republicans on their back heels, and likely is the only way to get a bill out of the lame duck session. If Democrats believe that G.M. can wait until the new session then the above advice is, to quote Ron Ziegler, “inoperative”.

Bill Ayers is interviewed by Good Morning America. Is this interviewer the stupidest man on the planet? Ayers explains over and over the concept of a political coffee, which in a city the size of Chicago means the candidate stops in to a home to meet with neighbors and friends of the host. Arranged by the campaign the candidate does numerous events of this nature, many in a single day. Ayers manages to plug his book, and thanks to the Republicans probably sold a truckload of books that he would have never sold. Does that make the Republican Party culpable for the spreading of the Ayers radical agenda?