Democrats' New Hero (for a Day): Joe Lieberman

Democrats' love-hate relationship with Joe Lieberman is definitely on the warm and fuzzy side today after his legislative maneuvering to get Don't Ask, Don't Tell repealed. Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-independent who campaigned for John McCain, was all thumbs-ups and smiles after his role in helping secure the necessary Republican votes. “He’s certainly one of my heroes today,” an official with the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network tells Politico. "This would have not happened without Sen. Lieberman.”

He still hasn't decided (or at least announced) whether he's running for re-election in 2012, and he said Friday that if he does run, it would likely be as an independent, notes the Hill. But if his DADT efforts put Democrats back in his camp, who knows... In the meantime, he's winning praise like this from Massimo Calabresi in Time: "With all that has been written about the overdetermination of national politics by money and special interests, Lieberman is perhaps the best example in the current Senate of the fact that individual character and belief still make an enormous difference, for good or ill, in a body with only 100 members." (More Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal stories.)