Democrats Still Befuddled by Meaning of Phylum Chordata

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) easily won a vote to remain chairman of a key committee today and will stay in the Democratic caucus despite his high-profile criticism of President-elect Barack Obama and his support of Sen. John McCain during the presidential campaign.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said that "Joe Lieberman is a Democrat. He's part of this caucus."

Joe Lieberman is officially a ConnecticutForLiebermann-crat. If you've been busily blotting out your memories of the god-awful campaign season, like Harry Reid apparently has, Liebermann also stumped around the country for John McCain, whispered corrections into John McCain's ear, touted John McCain as the best hope for America, agreed that it really is a good question to ask if Barack Obama is a Marxist, and, oh, fretted out loud about the potential for America to be destroyed if Barack Obama, Democrat, were to be elected president. Joe Liebermann has also been a cheerleader for the Iraq war from Day One, and never hesitated to remind us that he believed John McCain has always been right on that account and Barack Obama has always been wrong.

In other words, Joe Liebermann has pretty much been functioning as a Republican in the Senate for a while now, so the Democratic leadership's worries about not having a 60-seat majority have been little more than insipid, poorly written theatre. Oh noes, they said, what if we offend Joe and he defects to the other side? News flash: he did that a while ago, propping up George Bush and talking shit about the Democratic presidential candidate to anyone who would listen. And your response to that is to say we need unity and all the Democrats we can find? Well, yeah, but this guy has not been interested in either unity or party discipline since Ned Lamont beat him in the CT Democratic primary way back when, so you need to aim a little higher when it comes to operationalizing your ideals and a little lower when it comes to giving somebody a much-needed kick in the ass out the door.

Obama seems to have wanted to keep that national security gavel in Joe's hands. Swell. Next!