Joe must have solid gold kryptonite quality career killing info on the Dem leadership. He's got them in his pocket.

I don't know what rape gurney joe has on the Dems but it must be good.

Great minds think alike. My initial thought was that Lieberman has dead young girl with Senator or live young boy with Senator pics. And he must have a lot of them. Otherwise, it just does not make sense.

Democrats won't even investigate, let alone impeach, the war criminal decider. What are the odds they will punish Joey? Bastards! All of them!

As regarding knowledge, the buck stops with each one. They never asked, I'm sure.

The Lieberman affair shows an awful rot in the Democratic Party. Right now, all you can do is hold your nose.

Senate Dems = Worst People In The World.

And we will all pay for their patheticness.

And when Lieberman starts using the power of his committee to play the Republicans' "Our Man in Havana", I don't want to hear a single Democratic Senator complain about it. They had their chance to strip him of the power to commit further mischief, and decided that it would just be too uncivil.

This new information might have made a difference -- since money seems to count for more than integrity with the Democratic Congressional leadership -- but I doubt it.

In the end, I suspect Harry Reid would give Mitch McConnell a committee chair if McConnell agreed to support him as majority leader (and promised not to send out any nasty right-wing talking point memos about him).

I know it's looney idea given the light touch Joe's received from the caucus, but why hasn't Reid and company at least made Lieberman raise money and campaign for Jim Martin in the Georgia run off election? It would be a show of renewed support for the party.

Enough about Lieberman already, okay? The guy's a jerk, the Dems look spineless for letting him keep his gavel. It's done and over with, and there's no point in dwelling on it any longer.

"While the Senator's political action committee donated to a very few Republicans, the Senator's pacs donated and raised over a half million dollars for wide range of Democratic candidates and organizations in this past election cycle," Marshall Wittmann, his spokesman, said.

I guess he donated to enough Democratic races to buy those votes.

Seriously, though. Do we expect the Democratic Senators to take action against every member who supported Lieberman against Lamont in 2006? That would include a lot of them. It would also include Barack Obama.

The caucus needs a hard rule: if you campaign against the Democratic candidate for a governorship or national office, you can stay in the caucus but you lose your seniority (and hence your committee assignments).

... if the Senate Democratic caucus had known ....

SO --- why not just ask them?

Ask every one of them if they knew about this latest bit of information, and them ask them if it would have affected their vote. Then get someone to start picking through the brambles to find out who voted for Judas Joe, and make absolutely certain that they face hardcore primary opponents the next go-around.

Reconciliation, when used as a veil to hide collaboration, is spelled

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Senator Lieberman is a thoughtful moderate. The democrats would be shooting themselves in the foot if they punished him. Not that I would have cared, mind you.

In a word, NO.

It should be obvious by now that not only does the Democratic Party reward Lieberman, Gates, and other Republicans, but that it punishes the netroots.

The time has come to go after the Democrats - even if it means supporting a Republican. I don't care if the Republican has fangs, favors cannibalism, and views Hitler as a lefty-pinko. We support the Republican anyway.

We should should target two or three Senators and a "Dirty Dozen" representatives each term. Sure, we should first try to get rid of them in the primary; but that is not enough. Even if it means a Republican, we will crucify their bipartisan ass.

Otherwise, you will just get more of this stuff and - let me speak plainly - you will have only yourselves to blame.

Does no one remember Leiberman's convention speech for Gore? I sensed that Leiberman was communicating his disdain for his own words to someone and it wasn't the Democrats.
My point is, is that Leiberman's loyalty to the Democrats has been questioned in my mind since that moment. It the Dems have had no inkling, they are in deep trouble where Leiberman is concerned especially since he is DHS chair.

>"...if the Senate Democratic caucus had known about these contributions, would it have made any difference... "

Nope. IMHO the most powerful, tightly diciplined PAC in the US is at work here. Everybody knows it but nobody can talk about it. (Nobody that wants to stay in power that is).

There a lot more than Joe's paltry $5,000 at stake. They will be expecting ROI from this in the near future.

Typical DemocRAT M.O. act first investigate later or never.

Not sure if Iraq has WMD?

Give the preznit a blanket authorization to go to war.

Being stone-walled about torture, domestic spying and politization of the justice department? Administration official flip you the bird and wipe their asses with your subpoenas?

No worries, take impeachment off the table.

Idiot in chief says we need to 700 billion in 48 hours dollars or the economy will collapse?

F*ck due dilligence. He hasn't been right about anything yet, trust him, give him the money.

Scumbag, turncoat senator says he didn't really mean all those nasty things he said during the campaign?

He promises to be a good wittle senator, he has "regrets," and by the way he won't come in your mouth. Open wide and let him keep his plumb chairmanship gavel.

unless there's a reason to believe it would have made a difference to obama, it wouldn't have made any difference at all. obama saved lieberman, after all....

My guess is there's something added to the water in the Senate water fountains which melts spines.

Damn!!
I thought I was on the wrong blog. Dissing good Democrats like this. Now tell me again which party is controled by idiots. OH!! IT's both of them. I never realized that. I thought it was those lying,cheatin Republicans. Oh well,learn somthing every day.

So, in light of this 'new evidence'... Can't they re-vote, and strip him of his position?

Senator Lieberman is a thoughtful moderate.

Yeah sure, Al. If he was in your party, he'd be Mr. RINO to you.

Even if Lieberman votes with the Dems 100% of the time in the next Congress, that's completely undone by his support of Norm Coleman if Coleman hangs on to win.

I don't expect Lieberman's support of Coleman made a huge difference, but the fact is, it didn't have to. Over 360,000 Minnesota voters voted for Obama, then split their ticket and voted for Coleman or Barkley instead of Franken.

If Lieberman's support of Coleman persuaded even a few hundred of those 360,000 pro-Obama ticket-splitters to do so, then Coleman's win (should it happen) will be his fault, and every future Coleman vote against Obama's legislation will be attributable to Lieberman.

I'm from Chicago, the most games-playing political arena in America, so I'm going to say that Obama and Dems are holding something over Lieberman, not vice versa -- some kind of "offer" that's going to benefit Dems in the long run. (I pretty much have to think this way in order to keep my blood pressure down.) I suspect time is going to reveal just what the "deal" is.

Where's Michael Corleone when we need him?

Given what they did know, I doubt Lieberman's financial support of Republican candidates would make a difference to the Democratic leadership.

Can anyone put up a persuasive argument -- not for this potentially having made a difference, had it been known -- but for anything that would have made a difference? Given what "my" Senators were willing to put behind them (like used toilet paper) in order to allow Holy Joe to keep what they apparently felt was rightfully his'n, I can't come up with anything I think would have made a particle of difference. How 'bout yours?

With kind regards,
Dog, etc.
I'm so old, I remember when the Democratic leadership was made up of Democrats

Karen, that is my thought, too. Joe may have looked to have gotten away with something, but there are strings there. We shall see how this plays out.

That said, I fully expect Lieberman to try to stab Obama in the back. Just how "Chicago" Obama goes, well, I hope it's all the way, baby!

Gotta watch us Chicagoans!

Not that I like Lieberman in any way whatsoever, but to a degree, this could just be an example of the Senate being insanely "clubby".

For example, go to http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/ and search Barack Obama to see how he contributed to Hillary's campaign.

Merkely publicly stated that he believed Lieberman should've lost his seat at the big boys table.

The democrats don't want the fight. I don't think anything could compel them to make a stand. They won't pursue justice in regards to the Bush administration's illegalities, they won't do anything.

It is a false glitter, to think that overweening "niceness" and forgiveness at all costs does ultimately serve the good. It just promotes contempt among ones adversaries and is an insult to one's own. Such uber-solicitousness is really an indulgence in feeling superior and glowing as an exercise in self-indulgence, it is not the constructive work that can come from needed and mature reconciliation (as with Nelson Mandela and South Africa.)

While I find the modern incarnation of Joe Lieberman quite disgusting, I really suspect that his approval by Obama, Reid and the Senate Democratic caucus is based on the likelihood that the Republicans will filibuster judicial nominees over the next two years. Since we are looking at at least two Supreme Court retirements in the next two years, that is a major item to consider in the Senate. We can't afford to send anyone else up there to support the five Catholic Conservatives.

While Joe can't be trusted as far as he can be thrown, as long as he is in the Democratic Caucus I suspect that he will feel constrained to vote for the Democratic judicial nominees. I also suspect that Martin will lose to Chambliss in Georgia and it begins to look really doubtful for Franken in Minnesota. That leaves the Democrats two short of a filibuster-proof majority IF Joe is there to vote with them.

With Lieberman in the caucus, that means only two Republican cross-overs are needed. Difficult, but not impossible. If Joe went to the Republican caucus, he'd almost have to vote Republican on such party-line votes. If Joe resigns he'd be replaced with a Republican by the Republican Connecticut governor. My bet is that was the key to keeping him in the Democratic caucus.

As disgusting as I find sanctimonious Joe, I'd say that if the price of keeping him in the Democratic caucus is ignoring his disgusting behavior this year, then it's worth holding our collective noses and admitting that Obama and Reid did the right thing keeping him happy.

Lieberman is such a weird fucker. I wonder how he can stand living with himself.

In the future his story will be a morality tale. Kids, this is not how you want to live your life.

We may not know how short is his leash, or the staff member(s) monitoring his committee work. We do know that he can hardly turn his coat again, especially since the Palinheads are driving the Republican Party even deeper into the swamp. He's in chains, and it may be amusing to watch him squirm in the embrace of the colleagues who despise him.

I'm from Ct and am embarrassed and disgusted by Lieberman.
That being said, Joe now owes Obama for not publicly humiliating him.In turn, Joe is owed by the likes of McCain,Collins, Graham,
and if he gets in Coleman.

Joe could turn out to be an important ally to Obama if he can pull any of those Repub senators over the line in crucial votes.