And if he keeps the gavel, I keep my money in my pocket and will not donate to the DSCC ever again.

I shouldn't be surprised after the Senate Democrats repeatedly capitulated to the Bush administration, but I can't help but be somewhat sick about this.  Allowing Lieberman to get away with this crap is beyond pathetic.

have consequences.  Unintended consequences included.

This pretty much sucks.

Holy Joe is going to be a major obstacle for actual change. Obama will rue the day that he decided to let Joe off the hook.

The creep attended fundraisers for Republican Senators in contested seats for gods' sake! He might have given Norm the money he needed to win by 2 votes. Yet you allow him to assume a position of responsibility?

Ridiculous. The Democrats have no one to blame but themselves if their agenda goes down in flames. Ironic considering the party has an actual leader now.

Obama-can-never-make-a-mistake derangement syndrome.

When Joe Lieberman uses his gavel to open frivolous investigations of the Obama administration, and to prevent Obama from accomplishing important goals, it will be too late to do anything about it. Removing him at that time would look like a cover up.

Obama got played on this. Idiocy.

Oh Jesus Christ, either strip him of his chairmanships or don't do anything at all.  Giving up leadership of one subcommittee is like the worst of all possible worlds.

I'm not so much angry that Lieberman's getting away with being a little Quisling as I am that they're being so inept about it.  

Either punish him or don't.

who cares?

the obsession with running Joe out of the tribe is a little weird.

Then getting to 60 or 65 seats does NOT matter. How can Reid ever exercise leadership?

I don't know if there's anything worse than what Lieberman did in order for someone to suffer any punishment.

It's not just a question of judgment but a long series of abuses and baffoonery by Lieberman.

But, if there are NO consequences for such behavior, anything goes....

Good luck with trying to stop a filibuster or anything else ....  It's stupid.

I'll believe it when I see it.

If things go down like this.

Reid should be replaced (not that he will, but he should).

No.

The problem isn't partisianship  its the framework you and your friends allow to exist.

There is no such thing as partisianship, there's only right and wrong.  If you're doing the right thing, you don't need to reach across the isle, like minded legislatures will join you because they agree with you regardless of your party.

But of course, Washington isn't based on altruism. There are times you need to log roll, make deals, etc. But the legislatures you convince to join you, don't care about "bipartisianship" they care about what you can do for them.

Stop encouraging your friends to believe in rainbows and fairytales. How bipartisian were Republicans from 1996-2006? Not very. In fact their "uniter not a divider" President turned out to be one of the most hyper partisian adminstrations of all time. The Republican controlled Congress during those years reveled in their hyper partisianship.

So please, spare me this "Democrats are being partisian." People didn't overwhelmingly vote Democrat the last two years so the right and the left would get along. They support Democrats so they would get things done.  

Jane Hamsher said it:

Where to begin?  Well, let's start in 2000, when Senator Joseph Lieberman, the Democratic candidate for vice president--in response to pressure from the Bush campaign and without checking with his own--conceded hundreds of fraudulent overseas ballots supposedly from military voters that cost Al Gore the election, the notorious "Thanksgiving Stuffing."

Let's skip lightly over Lieberman's part in the culture wars, his sanctimonious rebuke of President Clinton on the floor of the Senate at the start of the impeachment charade, and his critical role as part of the so-called "Gang of 14" breaking Democratic resistance to putting Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court. Let's jump straight to Lieberman's December 6, 2005 speech where he rebuked his party:

   

It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be Commander-in-Chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war we undermine Presidential credibility at our nation's peril.

While Lieberman was quick to denounce Clinton for a private matter he leaped to the defense of Bush as even Republicans realized his strategy in the Iraq War was disastrous. Criticize George W. Bush and his conduct of the war and you're a traitor.

Lieberman subsequently told the New Haven Register that he opposed legislation that  would have required all publicly funded hospitals to provide Plan B contraception to rape victims, saying "it shouldn't take more than a short ride to get to another hospital" (for which he earned himself the  sobriquet "Short Ride.")  The 2006 Democratic primary campaign in Connecticut was in some respects a warm-up for Lieberman's negative attacks on Barack Obama, ironic given that Obama endorsed him. Lieberman had been assigned to show the freshman the ropes in the Senate and Obama called him his "mentor." Obama rushed to the state to deliver a ringing endorsement of Lieberman at the annual party dinner. No good deed goes unpunished.

Lieberman's opponent, Ned Lamont, was a businessman and an antiwar activist from Greenwich. Supported by the Democratic establishment, Lieberman claimed he would abide by the results of the primary. But when he lost he ran as a member of a new political party, called the "Connecticut for Lieberman Party."

He blanketed cars in parking lots of African-American churches with flyers suggesting Lamont was racist. (Lamont had resigned from a country club, not because it practiced discrimination but because he felt it was not diverse enough.) Meanwhile, Lieberman stoked racial tensions by telling Jewish groups in Connecticut saying that Lamont had surrounded himself with people like Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Al Sharpton "who are either naïve or are isolationists or, frankly, some more explicitly against Israel."

Lieberman also declared himself a "non combatant" in the 2006 congressional races and refused to say which party should have the majority. The Bush White House and Karl Rove openly lent him support, winning him a vast majority of Republican votes and the election.

Lieberman had campaigned as a born-again antiwar advocate, telling Connecticut voters he was confident troop withdrawals from Iraq would begin by the end of the year, and that 50 percent would be home by the end of the following year. Nobody, he assured voters, wanted to bring the troops home more than him. The month after his election, he called for an immediate increase of 15,000-30,000 troops.

During his campaign, Lieberman said that it was important for him win his Senate race in order to "elect a Democratic President in 2008," and that Lamont and his supporters would "frustrate and defeat our hope of doing that." Undoubtedly, he was a good friend of John McCain for years. And he agreed with McCain about the Iraq War. But underlying his actions was bitterness against the Democrats.

Lieberman threatened to caucus with the Republicans over and over again to get his way as the decisive marginal vote in a Senate held by the Democrats by only one vote--Joe Lieberman's.  

But it was with the 2008 presidential election that his bitterness became his rocket fuel.  Lieberman was unbound. In addition to acting as McCain's sidekick and protector, he stumped for Republican senator, campaigning for Susan Collins of Maine and Norm Coleman of Minnesota against their Democratic opponents.

Lieberman promised Reid privately that he would not attack Obama directly and personally. But when prevailed upon by the McCain operatives, Lieberman could not help himself. He played the paragon of decency even as he gleefully accepted the role of snarling attack dog:

   * He said that "Obama has not always put country first."
    * He thought it was a "good question" to inquire whether Obama is a Marxist.
    * He misleadingly accused Obama of having "voted to cut off funding for our troops."
    * He repeated the claim that "Hamas endorsed Obama" and said it "suggests the difference between these two candidates."
    * He sent out an email for McCain, referring to the "Democrat" Party, the derogatory term of art preferred by the most partisan Republicans.

Lieberman went on to deride Obama in a speech before the Republican National Convention (after promising Reid he would not do so), saying he was an "an eloquent young man" who lacked the experience to be President. Reid's office said that Lieberman's seniority within the Democratic caucus, and his Chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee might be in jeopardy. Obama's press secretary Robert Gibbs went on CNN to declare that Lieberman engaged in "flat out lies." But Lieberman would not let up against Obama.

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/10/the-ca se-against-lieberman/

Protest outside his home. Every single fucking day of his life from now on.

this marks the beginning of a very long line of disappointments to emanate from the Obama administration.

what kind of chickenshit is joe? i mean the least he could do is pick on his equals.

if it comes to pass. Never ever. I might as well vote for a thrid-party candidate.

Why are these guys so fucking afraid of Joe Lieberman?  I don't get it.

But I will not participate in any Democratic party activities, or donate money to the Democratic Party, so long as Lieberman has his gavel.

Any party that lacks the ability to enforce even minimal and elementary party discipline and loyalty, and awards with a committee chairmanship a man who openly worked to subvert the efforts of millions of loyal Democrats, and spread slanders as part of that effort, really cannot be trusted with my money.

Proving once again that Russ Feingold is the only Democratic Senator with a spine or balls.

Actually, that is such an overstated thing. People say they dont like negative campaigning too, but they respond to it.

We got over Obama supporting Lieberman and showing tepid support to Lamont. People would have gotten over Democrats stripping Lieberman of the position. Actually, most people do not even give a shit about leiberman either way. He gets hate from us who know his crap and he gets protected by others in politics who have little principle.

The tide turned in Lieberman's favor, sources say, after two events in recent weeks.  First, President-elect Obama told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that he wanted Lieberman to stay in the Democratic caucus. Later, in a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Lieberman told him it would be "unacceptable" for him to give up his gavel.

This is how I imagine it went down between Sen. Reid and Sen. Lieberman:

Harry Reid: Sorry, Joe.  You have to give up your chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee.  Your disloyalty was unforgivable.

Joe Lieberman: That's unacceptable.

Harry Reid: You're absolutely right.  I'm a jerk.  I mean, what was I thinking?  Must have went a little crazy there!  My bad.  Mea culpa mea culpa.  So freaking stupid!  Jeez, um, so can I get you some coffee or something?  Rub your feet or whatever?  I mean, your wish is my command.  So so sorry.  Damn, you're looking good bro.  Been working out or something?  Um, jeez, so what's new?

Well, now that we in the netroots and grassroots have overcome the domination of the reactionary Republican ideologues, it would appear time to start work on rooting out the invertebrate Democratic jellyfish who currently infest the Congressional leadership.

The Democratic party has just demonstrated that, at least in the Senate, it is riddled with cynicism, contempt for its constituencies, and craven cowardice by prostrating themselves in front of that self-promoting weasel, Holy Joe Lieberman.   He has shown throughout his career that he is willing to stab any fellow Democrat in the back, preferably the entire party at one fell swoop.  He was the first and most vociferous Democrat to stand with the Republicans and attack Bill Clinton over Monicagate, demanding that Clinton resign the presidency.  

For some odd reason, he never found his voice over the past 8 years to take Bush, Cheney, or any of the outgoing Republican administration to task for any of their crimes and outrages in office.  Hmmmmmmm...

When his own constituents rejected him in 2006, preferring the more authentically Democratic opponent, Ned Lamont, Joe threw a Guinness Book of Records hissy fit and turned "independent." With a major influx of Conservative Republican money and the votes of practically the entire Republican party in Connecticut, Joe slapped his former Democratic constituents in the face and defeated their widely preferred choice.

Then, finding himself the swing vote in the Senate, he blackmailed the aforementioned spineless Democratic leadership into giving him perhaps the most powerful chairmanship in the Senate, the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.   Unlike his House counterpart, Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Holy Joe has done virtually no oversight despite his powerful platform.  While Waxman has been tireless investigating the wrongdoing in government of the current administration, Lieberman did nothing during his last two years.

One would not be unreasonable to suspect that now that his "fellow Democrats" are running the Executive branch, Holy Joe will suddenly find any number of molehills to try self-righteously to build into anti-Democratic mountains.  

In fact, instead of doing his job and holding hearings on the criminal, malevolent, and incompetent Republican management of Government Affairs, Lieberman has been busy denouncing his own (acknowledgedly anything-but-progressive) party as filled extreme radical leftists with an anti-American agenda, just this side of Uncle Joe Stalin.

Then, he sold out completely, allying himself completely with the Republican party and the McCain campaign, never more than 3 feet from McCain's shoulder throughout the campaign like some virtual Siamese twin.  

There were few voices in McCain's inner circle any more derisive and denunciatory of Barack Obama and the entire Democratic party as good old Holy Joe ("What's in it for me?") Lieberman.

With the Democrats holding a sizable majority in both houses as well as an undeniable electoral mandate, now would be an excellent chance for the Democratic Senate leadership to show, after years of groveling and whining, that they can actually stand up on their own hind legs (given that they haven't atrophied completely) and demonstrate a bit of testicular fortitude (given that THEY too, haven't atrophied).

And, what do we get?  Holy Joe once again backing down the entire party and getting his way.

Today's vote was like a bunch of morons, each with 9 bandaged fingers, sticking their last unbandaged thumbs into the fire to see if it still burns.

Give me a break...

Time to seriously begin work on a third party - or learn a foreign language.