Lieberman PAID for his chairmanship. Understand? 200K to the dscc plus over half a mil in fundraising. Lieberman doesn’t have to be a “good soldier.” That’s YOUR job.

This is going to need a consistent pushback from everyone with a position to speak to the public. Not “Lieberman, that slimeball” but “Old Joe, he’s such a joke he wasn’t even worth slapping on the wrist.”

He has Subpoena power as committee chair. Remove him from that committee, and he loses that. He is in a great position to start trouble-making investigations over nothing. Are you confident he won’t? Or are you confident, he won’t get backing from the press? Keeping him Homeland Security chair avoids minor drama now at the expense of major drama soon - (six to eighteen months). Big mistake…

In short, Lieberman will be a good soldier. If not, he’ll be forced out — but after proving once and for all that he can’t be trusted.

I think that moment came and went.

2) If Lieberman decides to go after Obama, it won’t just be on Fox news. It will be a sorrowful Holy Joe using his power to investigate Obama for terrorist associations or high treason, as proven Obama’s driving 26 mph in a 25 mph zone. And watch the media go crazy if the Democrats try to pull his gavel in the middle of an investigation by this “moderate independent man of integrity, and centrist Democrat”.

If Lieberman strays off the reservation, the Democrats can cut him off — and do so more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger, explaining that they tried to work with Lieberman, but he made the decision for them.

except that if they actually could do that, they could have done it this time. or, for that matter, the last time he stabbed the dems in the back.

but they didn’t then and they aren’t now, and so they won’t the next time, nor any other time either. and that’s why we have a permanent republican majority in actual practice, even if not in poli-sci theory.

sure, you list a few more or less hypothetical reasons why it “can’t be done now”. but there’s no reason whatever to assume, as you seem to, that either the same ones or equally weighty ones won’t still be there every time holy-joe stabs the dems in the back in the future. just as was the case in the past. you either take the bull by the horns, or the bull keeps right on trampling you; same for bullies like joe, same for the bullies that drive the GOP. quit making excuses for why the dems can’t grab these bastards by the horns just this time around, but just we wait until next time, then we’ll see… the exact same thing happen again.

In short, Lieberman will be a good soldier.

Lieberman has spent the last six or so years proving that he is anything but a good soldier. I think your confidence is misplaced.

What has he got to fear? He’s already proven that he can get re-elected even without the support of the Democratic Party. And now he knows that he can get away with not only campaigning for the Republican presidential nominee, but with doing so in a particularly sleazy way. Short of pissing in the President’s morning coffee, is there anything this guy can do that will get him booted?

I don’t think the Democrats should be vengeful. But we have decided to steer the nation on a significantly different course from the one that the Republicans have been advocating. And while “reaching across the aisle” to some of the more moderate, sensible Republicans is worthwhile, I don’t think it’s necessary or beneficial to hand any more power to the right-wing lunatic fringe.