Lieberman's Losing Bid for Influence

[kskiska]

Maybe the 50 members of the Senate’s Democratic Caucus should just call the bluff of their 51st vote and tell Joe Lieberman to take a hike.

The junior Senator from Connecticut, who was elected as an independent last year after losing the faith of his home state’s Democratic Party, continues to flaunt his tie-breaking status, all but calling his former partisan colleagues terrorist coddlers and daring them to do something – anything – about it.

It’s a bullying, childish game he’s playing. If Mr. Lieberman were to walk away from the Democrats completely and to caucus with Senate Republicans, he would hand the G.O.P. its magical 50th vote, which, along with Vice-President Cheney’s vote, would strip Democrats of the narrow majority they won in the chamber last November. And so he chooses to torment the Democrats, siding with them for organizational purposes only to amplify – at every pivotal turn in the four-plus-year evolution of the Iraq War – the White House’s most shrill and demagogic attacks on the party’s foreign policy credibility.

(snip)

But what Harry Reid and Company might not realize is that, for all of Mr. Lieberman’s threats, Senate Democrats actually have the upper hand in the relationship with Mr. Lieberman. If they were to lay down the law with Mr. Lieberman, he might not run to the G.O.P. as quickly as he wants Democrats to believe he would. And even if he did, it would be a relatively minor and very short-term setback for Democrats – but one with long-lasting implications for Mr. Lieberman.

more…
http://www.observer.com/2007/liebermans-losing-battle-influence