And what are his connections to the health insurance industry? Anyone have details on this?

Reid should let him know in no uncertain terms that his chairmnanship is stripped the moment he votes with the Republicans against cloture. It should be a promise, not a threat. Have the paperwork or whatever is necessary just needing his signature, shove it under Lieberman's ugly face and tell him the choice is in his hands.

I would hope the Democrats within established party leadership now realize the monster they created when they shunned the voters' will in Connecticut in '06! -Kevo

He's the one regret I have about voting for Gore in 2000. The guy can be one major self-righteous jerk.

Lieberman, "You are either with us, or against us." Make your choice, one last time.

Keep in mind that the opt-out version inherently requires senators to respect the relationship of other senators with their constituencies. It's one thing for a right-wing Republican to vote against the entire bill, but a Democrat vote focused on not allowing any state to have access to a public option -- or that of a Republican who claims to be moderate -- is directly thumbing his or her nose at their fellows who have voters in their states who strongly want to have that choice. The arrogance of that is beyond astounding.

Thanks a lot Conn. I'd rather have to listen to John Kerry for an hour than 10 minutes of that whiny,sanctimonious ass Lieberman.

I am telling you all you have to do to line up Lieberman's vote is whisper to the right people in Likud that Israel isn't going to get some weapons system unless Holy Joe plays ball. He will be leading the charge for the strongest possible public option by the end of the day. Maybe what Harry means when he says Joe Lieberman is the least of his problems is that Harry or somebody in the administration has already had that chat.

Don't forget he did the same thing with Alito's confimation.

He voted for cloture and against the nomination.

All this shows is that for Joe, the vote that counts in the cloture vote. The rest is just for show.

And it also happens to be true, too.

Having a right to be obnoxious, doesn't mean that you have an oblication to exercise it, Putz Lie.

I'm Inkadu. Neill has the night off.

God damn Joe Lieberman's shit-filled soul to hell.
I despise that odious little toad.

Lieberman is a dick.

In the end, he won't stop this. He'll probably get opt-in instead, which will please his corporate masters while giving him cover that he DID vote for a public option.

BTW, just HOW stupid are voters in Connecticut?

Lieberman sucks, as usual.

God, I've come to hate Lieberman. And I'm perfectly happy with increased party discipline that ensures cloture votes. But in addition to being fed-up with Lieberman's antics, I'm darn tired of Benen's inconsistencies and unfairness in his criticism of conservatives, the GOP, and other opposition. In my view, intellectual integrity is among the precious things which our side has the advantage of our opposition. It should be protected.

In two ways is Benen's criticism of Lieberman here flawed. First, of course there's no sense in which one must always exercise a "right" if one takes it seriously. Does everyone who fails to speak out in public on issues they feel less strongly about somehow imply that they don't take free speech seriously? Of course not. The question implicitly asked of Lieberman was "why won't you as a matter of course always support cloture votes with your caucus?" In his opinion, the procedural opportunity to use cloture to oppose bills he opposes is a "right" he has a Senator. He is under no obligation to always utilize that right. He utilizes it when he deems it necessary. You and I may disagree with him about this "right", but there is no inconsistency in his argument.

The second problem with Benen's criticism is that, even if it were a legitimate criticism, it's the sort of nitpicking that Benen would, and does, rightly find ridiculous when conservative partisans do it to the left. A good portion of Benen's output is this sort of opportunistic nitpicking which often reads comments made by the opposition in bad-faith and/or uses standards of criticism that he never has, or would, apply to his political allies.

What bothers me about this the most is that this style of partisan journalism--as opposed to that of his predecessors Hilzoy and Drum--is so quite like that of Fox News and The Corner and other partisan conservative punditry. Conservatives are wrong enough and hypocritical enough to be criticized and made fools of without willfully misreading their comments, or nitpicking them, or treating them otherwise unfairly.