I made this post in a reply to another post, but I think it's an important enough point to call out in it's own thread... Steve Benen caught something I don't think has yet been part of the mix in this whole Lieberman thing... The committee that Lieberman is fighting so hard to keep chairing, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, is responsible for oversight of the executive branch.
As Benen points out...
As chairman of this committee for the last two years, Lieberman decided not to pursue any accusations of wrongdoing against the Bush administration. Lieberman's House counterpart -- Rep. Henry Waxman's Oversight Committee -- was a vigilant watchdog, holding hearings, issuing subpoenas, and launching multiple investigations. Lieberman preferred to let his committee do no real work at all. It was arguably the most pathetic display of this Congress.
And yet, now Lieberman acts as if keeping this chairmanship is the single most important part of his public life. Why would he be so desperate to keep the gavel of a committee he hasn't used? I'll let you in on a secret: he wants to start using the power of this committee against Obama.
Lieberman didn't want to hold Bush accountable, but he seems exceedingly anxious to keep the committee that would go after Obama with a vengeance, effectively becoming a Waxman-like figure -- holding hearings, issuing subpoenas, and launching investigations against the Democratic president.
Lieberman doesn't care about "reconciliation," he cares about going after a Democratic administration. Why else would he fight diligently to be chairman of one committee instead of another?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015577.phpIf the price of keeping Lieberman in the Dem caucus is to give him the power to do to Obama what the Repubs did to Clinton after 1994, then the price is too high. Even if he would be the 60th member. Besides which, even if he IS the 60th member of the Democratic caucus, there's little indication that he'd be a reliable 60th VOTE to end a filibuster, which is the only real value of a 60-member caucus over a 59-member caucus.