Henry Waxman is fighting to take over he chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee from John Dingell. Dingell has been pretty pitiful over the last years, especially when he cut the fuel efficiency standards out of a 2007 energy bill. He’s also quite old, having been elected to the house before my father was born, but Waxman isn’t too new on the scene either. This affairs bothers me because although I disagree heartily with Dingell on a lot of envirioment issues, and he too often sides with his hometown Detroit, what does it say that we let Lieberman keep his chairmanship after what he did and might boot Dingell.

Either way, Waxman needed to get 14 out of 46 votes to be nominated for the position in front of the entire Caucus. Waxman won the vote today 25-22! Dingell was expected to get a majority if not stop Waxman from even getting the requisite 14, but it looks like his days as Chairman might be numbered.

Just to agree with the blogsphere writ large, I think is is outrageous that Lieberman has been able to retain his chairmanship. If we are a party at all then loyalty must be prized. In this sense, I’m not a pragmatist. I would give up 60, let him go to republicans and explain that to his constituents. Loyalty is the only currency I care about. We don’t need him and he should be tossed out. I don’t care if he rendered service to the caucus for a lifetime, when you stab the party’s candidate in the back you don’t get a chairmanship.

I find it highly unlikely that Liebs will be reelected, which means that he has 4 years to find a new job. Let him angrily caucus with the GOP. At least he has friends there. He’s spewing bs now. He says that keeping him is in Obama’s spirit of bipartisanship. But if he has never said a kind word about Obama and now just wants his job, is he someone to keep?

I might agree with Nate Silver that Obama is likely to blame, but when he says:

So how you feel about Lieberman should ultimately hinge on how you feel about Obama, and how you feel about Obama should ultimately hinge on your opinion about whether he is liable to put that political capital to good use. If you believe Dean’s implication that Obama is going to use that political capital to pass both significant climate change reform and significant health care reform within the first two years of his presidency, you probably ought to give him the benefit of the doubt. If, on the other hand, you see Obama as someone more concerned with the accumulation of power toward ambiguous, uncertain, or incorrect ends, this is liable to be the first of a long line of displeasing decisions, and you had better get used to pushing back against the White House.

I disagree. I disagree with Obama on Lieberman because I think that allowing flagrant disloyalty to go unpunished is a dangerous precedent to set. I think you send a message, maybe for a generation of senators, that you can’t do what he did and then stay in the caucus you attack. Might it have been a distraction, sure? But would distraction have scuttled the Obama ship or does my opposition to Obama on this point mean that I will disagree with how Obama uses his political capital generally? No.

Ted Stevens conceded earlier today. Good to know that although the people of Alaska are foolish enough to elect a governor who can’t speak in complete (or coherent) sentences, they won’t (barely) elected a criminal. In some ways I feel bad for Ted Stevens, not because he lost his election but because through careless arrogance he has destroyed a lifetime of service.

On a similar vein, despite routing for, voting for and fighting for Obama, I feel bad for McCain. Similarly to above, I don’t feel bad that he lost, but that he gave up so much of his reputation in the process. He’ll go down in history, if senators ever really go down in history at all, as a man who lost almost everything in the race. His actions, rhetoric, tone, and sudden policy switches will overshadow his genuine and often brave service to country. I can’t say that I agree with him on much of anything, but he’ll never be thought of as a above-the-fray politician again.

The recount started in Minnesota today. All I know is that December 5 is a long time a way, and we might get daily stories about 28 vote increases.

I want surprises. I want innovation. I want change. I voted for change. Many American voted for change, but it seems so far that we’re going to get a cabinet of the usual players. Now, Gary has pointed out to me that if you look at FDR’s cabinet you had a lot of insiders, but obviously that cabinet brought about a lot of change.

But Roosevelt had the brain trust–an unlikely cadre of advisers who thought of some of the most innovative solutions to the nation’s problems that we have ever seen. They turned upside down the expectations for government. Who is the Loius Howe? The F. Palmer Weber? Maybe these figures, a modern day brain trust will appear, but so far what I’m seeing is exactly what we’d expect: old names, old faces, old ideas. Tom Daschle? Hillary Clinton? Rahm Emmanuel? Eric Holder? All fine choices, and I will likely in the coming days, weeks, and months will accept, indeed praise, their appointments, but today, this hour I just want to know when we’re going to see some change.