I don't think Lieberman's defection would give control to the GOP. The Senate is organized by a organizing resolution at the start of each Congress and I believe the one this time around specifically said that if things went to 50-50 that the chairmanships and majority leader's post would stay the same. In the past, deaths or defections, even to the point where the "majority" party was numerically in the minority, did not flip control. The 2001 case was a special case where both sides, entering the year at 50-50 wanted to end that imbalance and wrote a resolution that, if the opportunity presented itself, would do just that. (If I am wrong on this, please correct me.)

Besides, would the Republicans even want control of the Senate right now? With just six months until a new Congress takes over and with only 40 or so Senate business days left thanks to the August and October recesses, having the majority would be as much a burden as a benefit. Democrats would likely grind business to a standstill and suddenly Mitch McConnell, who is already facing a surprisingly tough race in Kentucky, would be responsible for more than half of Congressional gridlock. And besides, the GOP would be certain to lose that majority in January. There just isn't much of anything to gain, and having the GOP-controlled Senate causing problems on the few bills that there are to complete would certainly distract from the GOP's only winnable battle this fall: McCain's campaign. You don't want a lot of articles saying "McCain returned to Washington to vote so that Cheney could break the tie..."

Regarding Joe: Lieberman's best possible outcome is for McCain to win so he can leave the Senate and join McCain's administration. Otherwise, he's might be out of a committee assignment unless he dramatically comes back to the party fold. There's probably still a chance of that happening, because it would benefit both Lieberman and the Democrats for Joe to stay in the caucus. Hurt feelings aside, Democrats wouldn't be winning anything by kicking him out.

If an angry Lieberman, stripped of his committee assignment, quit after Obama won, he would be replaced by a 100% Republican appointed by Gov. Jodi Rell. Democrats would prefer a half-assed Democrat in their majority to a full-time Republican in the minority.

If Lieberman stays in the Senate as a Republican, without his precious chairmanship, you need to think about the filibuster in a different way. You don't get any prizes for having 60 seats; you need 60 votes on any issue. (Democrats might have a filibuster proof majority on several issues with just 58 seats, thanks to Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter, assuming that they can keep their majority in lockstep. This is a caucus with Ben Nelson and Barbara Boxer, and these are Democrats we're talking about, so let's be realistic.) The need to hit 60 votes on issues might be reason alone to let Joe stay on board next year -- better to have him for the issues you can get him on than to anger him so much that he opposes every big plan Obama has for the next four years (including reforms and bills he otherwise supports).

And, yes, Lieberman has shown time and again that he is petty enough to do just that.

Appealing to liberal activists on this kind of party-loyalty/inside-baseball issue is not worth it. I can't stand Lieberman and would love to see him taken down a peg, but it's not worth it.

Two reasons he won't switch.  First, he promised during the general election that he would caucus with the Democrats and he will until he's thrown out of the caucus.  

Second, he votes against the Republican line 90% of the time.  Aren't Senators about governing as well as politicking?

" Why Doesn't Lieberman Join the GOP?"

For the same reason that Obama talks out of both sides of his mouth re. 16-month withdrawal from Iraq: playing both sides of the aisle enhances his political power.

Maybe that TNR morphing-photo cover should show Obama morphing into Holy Joe.  

barnacle, great post.

Tep, give it a rest. like McCain doesn't speak out of both sides of his mouth and his ass to boot. Honest to God beyond that, do you really believe Obama is going to continue the war in Iraq for years? You and I both know he is going to leave at the earliest possible time, he just isn't going to stick to a rigid 16 month timetable, And by the way, the Iraqi government wants us out as well and are demanding a timetable as well, it is only McCain who looks clueless by ignoring this fact by stating that it is only because of the Iraqi election that this is being said by them, as though their promises to their people are as meaningless as his promises to the American people.

Blackton, thanks.

Hey, screw Brad Plumer! I posted right here on TNR's comments that a Lieberman defection wouldn't change anything! What is my subscription paying for if not self-promotion!

Remember, when Jim Jeffords and Ben Nighthorse-Cambell switched, they went from being centrist to being doctrinaire members of the parties they joined. If Lieberman is expelled, we may lose his vote on a lot of issues.

A recent poll in Connecticut showed that if the election was held again, Lamont would win by double digits. Wait until 2012 to deal with this guy.

Kick him out of the party? No.

Take away his committee chairmanship? Hell yes.

He joins the GOP after that happens? So what.

Lieberman's value to the GOP is NOT with his votes or his caucusing with them.  It is the cover he provides for their fake bipartisanship.  How many Republican claims of "bipartisanship" amount to GOP extremists plus Joe Lieberman?  More than I can count.  

Stgla,

It's like when Zell Miller wouldn't leave the Democratic Party in 2004. If Zell had quit, he would have been just another right-wing conservative from Georgia. By staying in the Democratic Party in name only, he was afforded a kind of special status, and, by some, labeled moderate or bipartisan. Bi-polar would have been more accurate.

The answer is because he can't get elected from Connecticut as a Republican.

Unless he runs for Governor.

At this point, Chan, he can't get elected in Connecticut from any party.

I can't stand Joe Lieberman and never could, since he first came to my attention at all as Gore's VP pick.  His public piety alone makes me ill.  He has always been a disloyal, self-righteous prick.  I don't think for one minute that his estrangement from the Democrats is driven by the Iraq war.  The Dems have other pro-war members.  It is his nauseating desire to appear holier than whomever and the failure of Democrats, both in Connecticut and the Senate, to accord him the morally special status he thinks he deserves that drives his behavior.  

That said, I am content to have the Democrats exploit him however it remains to their net advantage to do so.  The moment they conclude that there are no tactical advantages in dealing with him, they should destroy him.  He's a political zombie anyway unless McCain somehow wins the election and then gives him a job in the administration.

I am old enough to remember when the Democrats used to brush the lint off the coats of such party stalwarts in the Senate as Eastland, Talmadge, Ellender, Holland, Byrd, etc., etc., etc.  Those guys didn't vote with the liberals in the caucus 90% of the time.  I don't remember Humphrey, Hart, Douglas, Lehman, etc., etc., etc. trying to eject them from the Democratic caucus.  What a farce!  The man does not follow the Iraq gospel according to Pelosi and Reid so he needs to be keelhauled.  Go ahead and do it. Republicans in tight senate races will benefit from it, and Joe will keep on doing as he pleases for five more years.

Lieberman and McCain save us from the defeat in Iraq and were lonely brave  voices when CW was get out. As reasult of surge even Obama had to admit

" n the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge, our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda — greatly weakening its effectiveness."

Obama admit that  there  are only  remnants of Al Qaeda  are left  Mesopotamia,  

It's sad to see that haters of Obama church smear a great American patriot.

lsernoff,

The Democratic Party didn't leave Joe Lieberman. He left it.

Ahh,  The usual rightwing, neocon horseshit about "defeat in Iraq."  We were defeated the moment we invaded Iraq because there was never anything there to win.  The surge accomplishes exactly as much as taking a hill in Vietnam.  While we are there in numbers, we can assert some control.  As soon as we go, things will revert to the control of forces unsympathetic to us.  Even the Iraqi government we created is unsympathetic to our interests.  No surprise there.

All of this crap about defeat is merely so that when the inevitable occurs, our withdrawal and the reversion of Iraq, the hoodlums who started the pointless war, and their supporters, can claim that it all would have been a huge success had they not been "stabbed in the back" by the liberals, the Democrats, the usual suspects they want to set up to take the blame for their own extremist foolhardiness.  Just like their intellectual forbears.  Indeed, they are still making such claims with respect to Vietnam.  These are not American patriots.  They are radical ideologues who put their ideology above the welfare of their country.

Indeed, isernott, what a farce give us!  I don't remember Eastland, Talmadge, Ellender, Holland, Byrd, or Jackson ever working to elect a Republican president or accusing Democrats they disagree with of disloyalty to the nation.  Lieberman is self-serving scum, a self-righteous bum.  He shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath with any patriotic American of any political persuasion.

Reply to roidytoidybullcrapamir:

Joe Lieberman represents the Democratic Party during its period of greatness: the party of FDR, Harry Truman, George Marshall, Dean Acheson, and JFK.  His detractors are another kettle of fish.  They believe that that the Islamofascist terrorists are basically fine folks, and that we could reach an accommodation with them but for the evil neocon Zionists (aka Jews).

The ant-Lieberman brigade is not monolithic.  Some of them (the so-called moderates) believe that if we get down on our knees and whine and beg and plead loudly enough then nature’s nobleman in the Islamic world will allow us to continue in our “liberal” ways.  The others, the “progressives” believe that our civilization is so morally inferior to that of Islam that it deserves to be destroyed forthwith.

Cowardice, irrationality, stupidity and self-hatred are the hallmarks of the contemporary left.   Liberals, in the honest sense of the word, should regard the contemporary left as the enemy of civilization, just as Truman, Acheson, Adlai Stevenson and JFK regarded the Communists in the great days of the Democratic Party.

About reorganizing the Senate. The GOP could use the same "nuclear option" they threatened over the appointment of judges. With 51 votes they could declare the filibuster inoperable when considering Senate reorganization.

Reply to bulbmanshitforbrainsstupiderthantoastheaduphisassbloodsuckerparasitefascistslob

That about sums it up bulbous, except this:  

It is the American left that defeated communism, not the insane, foaming at the mouth bullies and cowards of the right, such as your idiot self, who never saw a war that someone else's kid shouldn't fight.  You are all a bunch of holier than thou blockheads who would have blown up the whole world a long time ago if you had had your way -- and you are still trying to do it.  The greatest threat to American security is not the terrorists themselves, but the numbnuts like you who insist on fighting terrorism with stupidity, justifying your stupidity with the sulfurous insistence that anyone who does not have shit for brains like you believes that the terrorists are not a threat.  Could you be any dumber if you tried?  

No one hates America like the right, but we shouldn't take that personally because you all hate anything human that doesn't drip money and gassily declare its patriotism.  Go polish your American flag pin.  That should tax you for a week or two.

jadamsf,

The GOP would never use the "nuclear option" in the current environment.  By January, the GOP will be in the minority and, if it has trashed the filibuster, it would find itself consigned to the basement of the Senate with nothing to say about anything, as the minority is treated in the House.  There are is nothing currently at stake that would justify taking that risk.

roid - you perfectly express my feelings about Joementum with your usual pungent eloquence.  He actually makes me feel embarassed to be of the same ethnic group,

I think if one thing comes out of this whole mess in Iraq, the war on terror, etc, its that people will slowly start to realize that using physical means is not the quickest, cheapest, or most effective way to achieve policy goals.  Negotiating with Iran is not cowardice, its smart.  Trying to focus our energies and funds to Iraq on areas like economic development, humanitarian aid, diplomacy and training is not "surrender", its the acknowledgment that the almighty fucking military can't smooth any bump in the road the comes our way.  When will those boneheads on the right realize that there physical force might not work all the goddamn time?  Why aren't more people talking about North Korea?  How easy would it have been to bomb the hell out of that country and remove Kim Jung Il from power?  That certainly would have stopped their nuclear ambitions.  But obviously we would have been stuck with the same impossible nation building situation we have in Iraq.  So we went a different route and guess what?  If fucking worked.  Was George Bush being a coward when he finished off his lone accomplishment from this term?  Of course not.  He was being what a President should be.

Jack,

I share your sense of embarrassment for the exact same reason.  

Reply to roietc.

Sounds like you're off your meds.  Somebody should call your social worker.

Obama has pretty much embraced the Bush program for Iraq.  As soon as the situation is stable and the American commanders and the Iraqi government agree we'll start withdrawing combat forces.  Duh! We need them in Afghanistan anyway.

Obama, unlike many of his admirers, is not a fool.  He understands that if there if he becomes president and there is another 9-11 style attack he is toast, and so is the Democratic Party for a generation.  

Of course Obama spews goo-goo pacifist rhetoric to appease his idiotarian base.  We all have to pay a price.  The price the Republicans have to pay is to appease people who think the world is 6000 years old.  Stupid, yes, but not a threat to national security.

Meanwhile Bush is negotiating with the Iranians.  As Winston Churchill said, jaw-jaw is better than war-war.  But jaw-jaw works best if the enemy knows that that there are limits on our patience.  Yes we should negotiate, but at the same time we ought to remind Ahmedinejad what of what happened to Saddam Hussein.

Very good bulbous.  You almost sound as if you are a bit more than yet another mini-Rush Limbaugh who thinks noisy patriotism compensates for extreme stupidity.  But you should try reading something other than Tom Clancy novels to inform your views about world affairs.

It is precisely because of the "reminder" that you urge that Iran is determined to obtain nuclear weapons and inevitably will unless we can enlist the active support of Russia and China because there is exactly zero possibility of our attacking Iran and driving our own gasoline prices up to $10/gallon without in any case materially damaging Iran's nuclear program.  Our dependence, and our allies dependence, on foreign oil leaves us handcuffed.  Of course, we can't at present enlist the support of Russia and China in any adequate way because they are as put off by our belligerent, go-iit-alone, cowboy militarism as are the Iranians.  There is almost nothing less effective, indeed nothing more self-defeating, than hollow threats -- which you super-patriots love to issue at any and every opportunity.

The thing that is so appalling about the Right, of which you are but one teeny exemplar, is the complete inability to think about how other powers can respond effectively to our bellicosity.  You all think we live in a novel or a movie where the hero, strutting about like he's just taken a big crap in his pants, boasts "Bring 'em on" and the bad guys run straight on into our weapons and fall down dead.  The Right plays chess one move ahead but imagines, in its juvenile fashion, that if you drape your self in the flag while you do it, you somehow win anyway.  Not in the real world.