LIEBERMAN: IF IT QUACKS LIKE A DUCK...

This Saturday Ned Lamont will be the Blue America guest at Firedoglake (2PM, est). I spent some time with him on the phone today, mostly talking about the seminar he is giving at Harvard now. But he did mention something about how Lieberman had tried to convince Connecticut primary voters how he, rather than Ned, was the real Democrat. When Democrats refused to buy that and defeated Lieberman, he switched tactics so say he was above party politics and that Connecticut voters should re-elect him because of his independence and because he would be an effective fighter to start bringing the troops back from Iraq by the end of 2006.

Now he caucuses with the Democrats, and they allow him to use his Democratic seniority inside the committee system-- where he daily betrays Democratic policies, values and principles. But he sits with the Republicans... and votes with them. Today's New York Times says it was no surprise that when every single Democrat (plus two Republicans) voted to go forward with a debate on Iraq, Lieberman stuck with the GOP decision to adhere to Cheney's demands that no debate be permitted. Lieberman is constantly running after TV stations-- which insist on identifying him as a "Democrat"-- so that he can spin Rove's patently false and misleading talking points about how unpatriotic Democrats are. The Times points out that Lieberman is more of a White House shill than most Republicans are these days.

But Mr. Lieberman also went further, accusing Democrats of giving strength to the enemy and abandoning the troops, and arguing that an alternative resolution that he and many Republicans backed was “a statement of support to our troops.”

That was too much even for one Republican member, Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, a sponsor of the bipartisan resolution against the president’s policy.

“I forcefully argue that ours is in support of the troops,” Mr. Warner said tersely. “And there is no suggestion that one is less patriotic than the other.”

Lieberman is impervious to being slapped down by his colleagues over this constant stream of falsehoods. His audience is Fox News and Regime insiders, not U.S. Senators. He surely knows he'll never be able to run for office in Connecticut again and he never even goes to the state any longer. But he is also aware that recent investigations into recalling a U.S. senator have come up blank. There is virtually no way to get Lieberman out of office... for 5 more long, hard years. Democrat Senators who gave him aid and comfort against the Democratic nominee-- particularly Mary Landrieu-- now have to face up to the fact that they helped elect a Republican, a special irony for Landrieu who will probably lose her own race for re-election due to a lack of action on Hurricane Katrina rebuilding due to Lieberman-- as chairman of the committee in charge-- siding with the GOP.