Lieberman

Lieberman should be a four letter word. Here we have a formerly center-left Democrat from an extremely blue state, the Vice Presidential nominee in 2000, who decided to support a war opposed by most of the party. He gets primaried as a result, loses, but decides to run as an independent and wins - in part through his amateurish opponent's mistakes, in part through his own misrepresentations. All of this is annoying to a Democratic partisan, but whatever - if he'd continued to be (basically) a Democrat I wouldn't have a problem with him. His vote was necessary for the Democrats to control the Senate in 2007, so of course they suck up to him.

Now the intelligent thing to do now if you're Lieberman is to rejoin the Democratic Party and shore up his political base. What does he end up doing? Whoring out to John McCain and bashing the Democratic nominee.

So let me ask you. If you're a Democratic Senator, what do you do? You freeze Lieberman out, right? Well, apparently not. The Democratic Caucus is going to keep him around, while stripping him of the Chairmanship. Now I suppose taking the gavel of the committee away from him is a punishment, but please. I'm as practical as the next politician, but when somebody actively campaigns for the other party's nominees (not just McCain either, but other Republican Senators as well) - well, you have to let everybody know that there is a price to that sort of behavior. Pour decourager les autres.