Please listen to this clip of President-Elect Obama from early September, first:
Now, think about the unseemly focus on Lieberman by the netroots (thankfully, on DailyKos itself, the "outrage" is muted and grudgingly low key; but elsewhere on the 'nets, the vindictive tone is jarring and unnecessary, after this beautiful victory). Really, is this the tone change and issue focus we professed to want, when we championed and voted for Sen. Obama?
In terms of voting in the Senate, Lieberman never was, and never will be, the worst one. (That honor should probably go to Rockefeller, some Southern Dems, Schumer, Clinton, Dodd, etc, before it goes anywhere near Lieberman.) In my opinion, being a neocon is more forgivable than not being one and voting and championing the Iraq war, for perceived political gain. The former is at least principled, the latter is not.
In terms of public bad mouthing of our Presidential candidate and praising of the opponent in the very same breath, Hillary and her surrogates did considerably more damage than even Lieberman, with much more attention paid by the media to their calumny (rightfully so, since it actually mattered what they said, being still in the "Democratic" fold and all). They did this, even after every reasonable reading of the situation meant that Sen. Obama was already the presumptive nominee of the party.
In terms of political strategy, the netroots created this blunder that is the Lieberman conundrum in 2006 for the Democratic party. There was no credible way to argue back then that he was the single worst offender in the Dem fold and yet, the netroots demanded their pound of flesh -- there were any number of other Dems running that year, that had done far worse for far longer and were not singled out for (r)demonstration.
My plea to the netroots community is this: stop trying to find bogeymen and going after them. We need to be working with even Republicans in these times of extreme circumstances; trying to axe out Dems is unproductive and soul-sapping. Let it go. Take your cue from the Obama response I have embedded above. If he can do that in the heat of a high stakes campaign and come out on top, we can too. Forget punishments and vendetta and false premises (singling out some and not others). Think policies and priorities.
Sorry to post this at DKos, where this activity is least, but this is where I find my home. Also, I dont really have much more to say (may not participate in the discussion, but please recommend anyway, so that the clip, and its message of consequential dialog, gets taken seriously by visiting offenders :-)