In watching with popcorn what is or isn't going to happen to Joe Lieberman vis a vis the Democratic Caucus or his chairmanship, the thing that scares me the most is the failure to recognize, either in Joe's mind, or in the minds of some of the Senate Democrats, what exactly we are dealing with here.
First, cut Obama a wide berth on this one. Given all the things he has got to deal with, his expressed opinion that Lieberman should remain is his way of trying to do the post-partisan thing without looking petty to the American people. That, and Obama has generally displayed himself to be a swell guy overall, kind of forgive-and-forget, and let's move on.
But it's that forgive and forget part that is bugging me right now...
The thing that scares me the most about Lieberman is his general attitude that he can act without any consequences whatsoever. And when he acts in the wrong, he has never displayed any contrition at all. Sorry, but that's scary.
Despite his broken promises to his constituents in Connecticut that he made in 2006, despite his promise not to attack Obama in 2008, he went ahead and did what he pleased. And following the election in 2008, does he apologize? Does he say, "Sorry, my bad?"
No.
He simply says, Oh well, time to unite, blah, blah, blah.
Shoot, even John McCain, in his concession speech, showed more grace, saying that whole associations thang...yeah, not his bag. Sorry.
Now, I'm no psychologist, but Lieberman is a narcissist of extreme proportions. If you can't recognize what you did wrong, can't find a way to apologize for it, and then project blame on others when they think of (shock! horror!) actually doling out some long deserved punishment (i.e., losing his chairmanship would be "unacceptable"), then you've got some issues.
And as for those willing to overlook those issues (I'm looking at you, Senate Dems, urging keeping Lieberman), we have what is called a codependency problem.
It seems to me the first step in getting over this hump starts with Lieberman. Apology for his past wrongs.
If he can get that far, I'm willing to listen.
But something tells me we'll be waiting for that for a looooong time.