Lieberman’s Fate: How Will the Dems Treat Him When the Cameras Are Off?

The sanctimonious Joe Lieberman is on my television discussing his political near-death experience. He gets to keep his chairmanship and that's too bad.

But...the Democrats decided not to skin their wayward sheep with the nation watching (or that section of it that is still paying attention to politics) while a new president-elect talks about getting past the vicious partisanship of the last couple of decades. (That new president of course nudged his Senate colleagues in that direction.)

So what happens when the spotlight wanders away from Holy Joe? 

Bonnie made an interesting and important observation yesterday at the Thomas Jefferson Street blog:

A month or more ago, a high-level Congressional staffer told me Lieberman would not be barred from the Democratic caucus, nor would he lose his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. The penalty, instead, for campaigning for Sen. John McCain during the election, would be stacking the committee with more members and more subcommittee chairmen, (as Roosevelt stacked the Supreme Court) so that Lieberman's power would be diluted in a way that would not be immediately apparent to the general public.

Indeed? Why publicly eviscerate Lieberman when they can slip in the knife repeatedly when no one is looking. Is that the Dems' plan? Beats me. But it bears watching in the coming months.

• Click here to read more by Robert Schlesinger.
• Click here to read more by Bonnie Erbe.
• Click here to read more on the Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
• Click here to read more about Joe Lieberman.
• Click here to read more about the Obama transition.