Final Thoughts on Joe Liberman

As was reported yesterday, Senate Democrats allowed Connecticut Independent-Democrat Joe "the rat" Lieberman to keep his chairmanship in the Senate, along with caucusing with the Democrats. Of course, the left in the blogosphere aren't too happy with the decision, and I can't really blame them. Bob Geiger explains his biggest offense to the Democrats:

....as I mulled a stomach made queasy over what took place yesterday, it suddenly struck me that Lieberman's main breach was far more general than any of that and it comes down to this: Joe Lieberman seriously wanted John McCain to be the next president -- and he worked damn hard to make that happen.

....in wanting so desperately to have John McCain taking the oath of office on January 20th instead of Barack Obama, Lieberman wanted the following:

* Years or decades more of endless occupation of Iraq and thousands of more dead American troops
* Acceleration of al Qaeda's strength as the U.S. further ignores real threats in favor of Iraq
* Greater erosion of U.S. image and prestige in the world
* More charity for Big Oil while devoting zero resources to energy independence
* Less oversight of Wall Street and more of the recent price we have paid
* Millions more Americans without health insurance to add to 47 million who already have no coverage
* More children living below the poverty line
* Further debasement of our Constitution and national creed
* Even more elderly making a monthly choice between food, home heating and prescription drugs
* A deficit ballooning to such size that our children's children will be paying it off
* Reversal of Roe v. Wade and criminalizing every woman's reproductive choice

And add to that the significant fact that, as a campaign insider, Lieberman knew for certain that Sarah Palin was an ignorant third-stringer, embarrassingly and dangerously unqualified to be so close to the Oval Office -- and yet he pushed to make that happen.

Make no mistake: Joe Lieberman is, and will be remember amongst us Democrats, a filthy, opportunist-driven, cheese-eating rat bastard. Lieberman's actions weren't for the good of the country, as much as he wants to tell people. He wanted power and access in a McCain administration, preferably, the Vice-President slot. He saw a path to gaining it and for him, if that meant crossing party lines, speaking at the other side's convention, and stabbing Barack Obama in the back after he helped his ass out when going up against Ned Lamont in the Primary battle two years ago, not to mention, his party in general, then the ends would justify the means if John McCain won.

Nevertheless, Geiger outlined in his blog post, the reason why Lieberman still holds his chairmanship now.

Instead, I found that of 638, 110th-Congress votes through July 31, 2008, 36 of those came down to a tie or were decided by only one vote and, of those, Lieberman voted with the Democrats 31 times -- and on most of those 31, Democrats prevailed based on Lieberman's vote.

I didn't like seeing that, but the results were real and they made me conclude that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was right to not push for Traitor Joe's ouster two years ago and that, like it or not, Democrats actually did need him on their side, at least some of the time.

Whatever opinion you hold of the Senator from Connecticut, he still, on some occasions, voted along party lines.

Now, if you take a look at the remaining tight Senate races in Minnesota and Georgia, with my opinion being that neither Al Franken nor Jim Martin will beat the incumbent Senators Norm Coleman and Saxby Chabliss to reach a filibuster-proof majority, Democrats are going to need a few moderate Republicans to break ranks on key issues and vote with them, thus highlighting Joe's importance to the Democrats to pass important legislation like healthcare and providing a tax cut to the middle class.

Like it or not, Democrats need Joe's vote in the Democratic caucus, and Harry Reid made the right call. But now, Lieberman's on a tight rope the rest of the way. He tries to pull a similar stunt to gain influence or increase his chances for power again, Obama's own words of keeping him in the caucus won't save him from being stripped of all power and being kicked out.