Last night Joe Lieberman gave a very boring speech in front of the Republican National Convention. His reception by the gathered delegates can be said to have been polite at best and he even looked a little uncomfortable, so maybe I should be thanking him.

He rendered night two of the convention a wasted opportunity, multiple times touting his own "Democratic" credentials, praising Bill Clinton as a paragon of bi-partisan cooperation and trying to make the case that John McCain's greatest virtue is his ability to work across the aisle. This at the Republican convention? OK, if that's the way you want to go.

The strength of the Democratic convention was summed up in Barack Obama's "ENOUGH!" Thursday night. It was the indictment of the Republican Party we've been waiting for, exactly the sort of argument that played to the base right there at Invesco but also summed up the larger argument for Barack that McCain = "more of the same" and that Obama = "the change we can believe in." Sure Lieberman's speech focused on the idea that McCain put "country first" over party, but what a slap in the face to those gathered who see partisanship as a virtue and see the false bi-partisanship promoted by Joe Lieberman and John McCain for what it is: empty rhetoric and a recipe for paralysis in Washington.

So maybe I should be thanking him. But really, is there any greater argument to boot Joe Lieberman from the Democratic caucus and his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee than his appearance at the Republican Convention last night?

First let's take the fact that he self-identified as a Democrat several times. No, Joe, you don't get to use that word to describe yourself anymore. You lost the Democratic nomination for your own job and out of political expediency, left the Democratic Party by choice. It wasn't Connecticut first or America first that drove you to found the joke that is the Connecticut for Lieberman Party, it was Joe Lieberman first.

But certainly if Joe left the party nominally in 2006, his words and deeds since then have secured his abandonment of the spirit of our party. Not only has he been an outspoken cheerleader for the disastrous war in Iraq but he has been joined at the hip with John McCain throughout his presidential campaign and in that capacity has hurled partisan attacks against Barack Obama, questioning his patriotism and his fitness to be president, and last night's speech was no exception.

Today, I'm glad to see Senator Harry Reid, who has expressed reluctance to punish Joe Lieberman for his disloyalty in the past, express "displeasure" at Joe's speech last night.

Reid spokesman Jim Manley said, “Sen. Reid was very disappointed in Sen. Lieberman’s speech ... especially when he appeared to go out of his way to distort Sen. Obama's record of bipartisan achievements in the Senate. He can give all the partisan speeches he wants, but as the American people have made very clear, the last thing this country needs is another four years of the same old failed Bush/McCain polices of the past.”

So, do something about it, Senator. Joe Lieberman must go.

I'm under no illusions that any final decision about Joe Lieberman's future within the Democratic senate caucus will be made prior to November 4th. However, what I'm sure of is that the more irrelevant we render Lieberman this fall, the more emboldened the Democratic leadership will be to oust him, which is all the more reason to support our Road to 60 ActBlue page. Remember, we'll only truly have 60 if Lieberman's not one of them, so please help our Democratic challengers break through the Republican firewall and render Lieberman irrelevant.