Dems Should Throw Joe Overboard

Lieberman does party more harm than good, columnist claims
By Jonas Oransky,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 4, 2007 6:20 PM CDT
Dems Should Throw Joe Overboard
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., center, discusses the war in Iraq during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington Thursday, July 12, 2007. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., left, and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., right, look on. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)   (Associated Press)

Senate Democrats wouldn’t be in the majority if Joe Lieberman didn’t caucus with them, but maybe they’d be better off, the New York Observer’s Steve Kornacki argues. Kornacki says the Independent senator embarrasses Dems by siding with the enemy  and accusing them of being terrorist coddlers. He's a bully who likes to taunt them with the possibility of defection. But he has more to lose from a divorce than they do.

If Lieberman jointed the GOP, he’d provably get to keep his treasured Homeland Security gavel—but only 'til 2009, Kornacki argues, given the odds that Dems will pick up seats in 2008. He'd lose his status as lapsed Democrat, which Korack sees as a cover for a  foreign policy position that's way out of the mainstream. Given the limited power the Dems' slim majority is affording them, he asks, why not give it up and get a head start on a new majority? (More Joe Lieberman stories.)

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