The Blunder

I will admit that in the immediate aftermath of the election, it wasn’t 100% clear that Reid blundered by letting Holy Joe keep his committee chairmanship; it was certainly the most plausible scenario, but there was at least some chance that in exchange for keeping his perks Ried had good reason to believe that Lieberman wouldn’t join Republican obstructionism of major Democratic legislation. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Well, the pudding is ready, and it sure tastes like shit.

I wish I could be confident that if Lieberman goes through with making the legislation far worse for reasons that couldn’t be more incoherent, at least after the midterms he’ll lose all of his perks and be reduced to the lowest-seniority position on a committee determined to have the least possible relevance to the interests of Connecticuit voters. But I don’t even believe that. “Please, Sir, May I Have Another?” still seems to be the organizing principle of Senate Democrats.