Joe Nighthorse Lieberman and Senate Subpoena power

51 votes in the Senate and we can stop the GOP legislative agenda.  50 votes and we share committee chair positions and gain access to the increasingly critical power to subpoena witnesses and conduct investigations.  Those are the numbers we keep hearing.

That second number is wrong.  Step inside to find out why.

Joe Lieberman is not the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, so we can still count him towards the 51-vote majority we'd like to have on most legislation.  (Not, sad to say, enough of it, or on the most important stuff, but he's better than some.)  But we can't count him towards that 50 number.  He has made clear time and again that he does not want the scandals of the Bush Administration to be investigated.  He has also floated the balloon of leaving the Democratic party to keep his seat.

Here's my prediction: if the Democrats win 50 seats, with Lieberman as the Senator from Connecticut, he will either switch parties or (more likely) declare himself an Independent.  If he needs to caucus with the Republicans to keep Democrats from holding a share of committee chair positions, that's what he'll do.  He does not want the Senate to unearth any bodies by investigating Bush scandals.

Technically, his declaring as an independent and caucusing with the other party would make him the rightward-sliding mirror of Jim Jeffords rather than the equivalent of Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Richard Shelby, the two other recent examples of Senate switchers, but "Joe Anti-Jeffords Lieberman" doesn't have the same ring as "Nighthorse."

Here's the math to keep in mind:

Subpoena power = 50 Dems (including Lamont), or 51 Dems (including Lieberman.)

No other Dem is as likely to switch.  Re-electing Lieberman is Karl Rove's key to making sure that the bodies stay buried.

"Joe Nighthorse Lieberman."  Make of that meme what you will.

So -- you want to do some investigating starting next January?