In yet another surprising Rahm-is-wonderful NYT paean, we learn that sexy Peter Orzsag was sent to dine with Maine Senator Susan Collins, and that West Virginia’s Jay Rockefeller got an Oval Office sit-down with President Obama. Maria Cantwell of Washington was also summoned to the Oval for a one-on-one with the President, on a Friday she’d hoped to spend at home.

The head of the White House Office of Health Reform, Nancy DeParle, even visited Dianne Feinstein in her storied DeeCee den, where Barack and Hillary made their peace last summer. Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu spent twenty minutes on the phone with HHS Secretary Sebelius last week.

Lotsa health reform woo bein’ pitched at the United States Senate, right?

But what of Holy Joe?

Will no one accord the sole elected member of the Connecticut-for-Lieberman Party, the chairman of the incredibly investigative Government Oversight Committee, the respect he deserves?

When Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, said on a Sunday morning talk show that health legislation should be delayed until the economy improves, his chief of staff got a telephone call from a worried-sounding Louisa Terrell, the White House legislative liaison assigned to monitor his office.

“She said, ‘Does he want to speak to Sebelius, does he want Peter Orszag?’ ” the senator said. He said it was not necessary. But last Friday, while Mr. Lieberman was at home preparing for Rosh Hashana, Mr. Locke, the commerce secretary, called. “He wanted to lobby me on health care,” Mr. Lieberman said.

Doesn’t this make RGJoe seem quite low down the totem pole in the health care debate? Especially for one who so cavalierly threw off his previous support of universal health care!? Having the assigned legislative liaison call your chief of staff isn’t the same as touring world trouble spots with President McCain! And being called away from religious preparations by the Commerce Secretary isn’t exactly having Rumsfeld’s stand-up desk on the E-Ring at the Pentagon.

It all sounds a little staff-y — and quite beneath the dignity of the man who was, after all, the Democratic Party’s nominee for Vice President in 2000. You remember, the one who got a half-million more votes than Dick Cheney?

So why would he share this story with a reporter?  Well it did give HolyJoe an opportunity to indulge his favorite passion: reminding us of his piety. While simultaneously chastising others for neither sharing nor acknowledging his own religiosity.

Watching Holy Joe tiptoe up to a filibuster two months ago (clip above) makes me wonder why anyone in this Administration would talk to him at all. But I’m sure he was happy to let the NYTimes reporter know how his Rosh Hashana preparations were so rudely interrupted by the Commerce Secretary. “He wanted to lobby me on health care.”

Can’t you hear the whine?


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