Does anyone know what it was that really sent Lieberman around the bend this way? I mean really. Was it the primary challenge? Is he still pissed off about that? Or is his rhetoric profoundly shaped by having taken on what's-his-name Wittman as his guy? Was it the demonization of Kyl-Lieberman? Or what?

In any case, I'd noticed too that lately Lieberman really seems to have lost it. The stuff he said on the floor of the Senate about Mukasey and torture really struck me as the ravings of a man who has lost his moral bearings.

"Does anyone know what it was that really sent Lieberman around the bend this way?"

My guess: Joe feels untouchable now, since he ran and won his Senate seat as an independent last time. If the Dems manage to cobble together a Lieberman-proof majority in the next Senate I wouldn't be surprised if they just cut him loose...

My guess: Joe feels untouchable now, since he ran and won his Senate seat as an independent last time.

Okay, but that begs the question, which is what caused him to really go around the bend rhetorically and otherwise. I mean, even if you never found Lieberman's views congenial and even if you always thought he was an unsavory moralizing sanctimonious hypocrite, the Lieberman of 2007 is very different from the Lieberman of 2000. I don't think it's right to say today's Lieberman was always there just waiting to be free. Something caused him to change, and even if it is just a matter of degree, it's quite striking. So what changed?

I'm *hoping* Democrats can kick Lieberman out of the caucus in 2009, but you gotta remember, these are the same people who gave him a standing fucking ovation when he returned after losing the *Democratic* primary.

I'll believe they'd rather side with *us* than with *him* when I see *any* evidence of it. They're "friends" first, and partisans... um... well, you'd *think* they would be, at some level, but they really suck at it sometimes.

And as for Joe's threat not to vote for the Democratic nominee for president, of *course* he won't, because the Democrats will not nominate a neoconservative authoritarian freak. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, I wouldn't want a nominee anyone whom Joe Lieberman *would*.

Watch him go give the keynote speech/nominate Rudy at the GOP convention, the crazy old fart.

Please tell me you're not equating Norman Podhoretz with Noam Chomsky.

Lieberman's not worthy of discussion anymore. He's backed into a pretty bad corner, and he (perhaps rightly) figures that his best chance of continuing to suck off the public teat is an appointment in the next GOP administration. But it's not in his best interests to actually switch, which makes him no more of a problem than Mary Landrieu. (Less of one, actually--we're going to have to work hard to save her seat, while he's going to be easily defeated by a real Dem in '12 if he even bothers to run.)

"Lieberman's not worthy of discussion anymore." -MikeB.

I disagree about that, and strongly. I'd argue it's a central principle of political self-defense, along the lines of some kind of marketing theory of protecting your brand, to prevent people from repeatedly attacking it, and you, from within your own party (or at least under that illusion, which much of the media/political system seems willing to maintain).

Yes, Lieberman "left" the party after the primary defeat, but that hasn't stopped him from implying that he's especially qualified to attack Democrats because he's close to them (which doesn't make them look particularly smart, either). He's become an anti-Democratic asshole, and the less crap we take from him, the less we'll get such crap in the future from people who might be tempted to copy him.

The importance of attacking Lieberman can be assessed by the FT's use of the term "fellow Democrats" in the article. He needs to be cut loose from the party as soon as possible so he can't be dragged out as a spokesman any longer.

“The Democratic party I grew up in was unafraid to make moral judgments about the world beyond our borders,” he said.

We're still not. For example, how on earth could France, with the opportunity to help finish off Dubya politically, have elected, of all people, SARKOZY? It boggles the mind.

We were the ones who were supposed to make the first move to rapprochement by electing Senator Kerry.

Yes, perhaps the neo-cons played some as-yet unreported roles in Segolene Royal losing. But at the end of the day, France should have gotten behind her in a much bigger way.

Actually, Jeff et al.., Lieberman hasn't changed since 2000. The Dems have been hijacked by a lunatic fringe, in case you haven't noticed. Talk Show Charles' comment on France displays this inane streak amply enough.

I think that it was his support for the Iraq War that sent Lieberman down this path. As soon as he supported that, the die was cast, because Holy Joe will insist on the rightness of his cause to the end, no matter the evidence to the contrary.

That being said, he has always cared more about Joe Lieberman than anything or anyone else. Remember when then-Gov. Rowland said that he would name a Republican to Lieberman's seat if he won both the Vice Presidency and the Senate race? Well, insisting on running as an Independent was just the next logical step. When faced with a choice between the good of the Democratic Party and his own self-interest, the Democratic Party never stood a chance.

Right, daveinboca, "some guy on the internet" is just as important and powerful as a sanctimonious and delusional war-mongering hypocrite who cheers on the destruction of American democracy and any pretension to the moral high ground in international affairs.

And watch out for that lunatic fringe; it's about two-thirds of the country these days.