Traitor Joe

It's hard to say whether Democrats should have stripped Joe Lieberman of all his committee chairmanships after he effectively left the Democratic Party last election. That he retained his seat running as an independent against Ned Lamont, who won the Democratic primary, was a disaster which the Dems just might have prevented if they had seriously campaigned against him. They could easily have made it known then that returning Lieberman to office would have cost Connecticut much of its (non-Dodd) clout in the Senate. But no -- wimps are wimps.

Of course, once he was re-elected -- as an "independent" -- there was no point in stripping him of the committee chairmanship he most wanted: Homeland Security. That is, no point if the Dems intended to hold this chairmanship as a threat against him should he stab them in the back and desert them on healthcare. (Were they capable of thinking that far ahead?) From what I understand, Obama put pressure on the Dems to take Joe back.

Okay, now is the time to make it clear to Lieberman that he will pay very dearly if he continues his Republican ways. In a previous blog I wondered whether Ted Kennedy had left his spine to the Democrats: this will be a test. If they can't put the screws on Traitor Joe they will have let all of us down. Can't they ever learn about party discipline?