Was I First?

Via Michele Malkin, will there be a bidding war for Joe Lieberman?

“He becomes the most powerful person in the Senate; he controls the uncertainty,” said American University political scientist Allen Lichtman. “The Republicans will offer him everything they can to get him; the Democrats will offer everything they can to keep him.”

Few observers expect Lieberman, a lifelong Democrat and the party’s 2000 vice presidential nominee, to bolt the party. But Democratic leaders concede the bidding for his loyalty could be fierce—and that Lieberman, furious about the party leadership’s decision to abandon him after the August primary, could extract a high price.

Hmmm.  That sounds familiar.  Where have I read that before?

If you think about it, that scenario may not be so far-fetched.  Mr. Lieberman supports the war on terror as the administration has been waging it.  He has some differences with the Bush Administration, to be sure, but he does believe that aggressive offensive prosecution against terrorists in both Iraq and Afghanistan is necessary.  If he were to vote to give Democrats committee control, he would be putting power in the hands of a party which disagrees with him strongly on this issue, a party which did its best to push him out of the Senate, a party in which the most vocal elements have called for "redeployment" or "immediate withdrawal" or a "timetable" for withdrawal, a party which abandoned him for the staunchly anti-war primary opponent that narrowly defeated him, and a party whose members he counted as friends turned their back on him.

Now, to be honest, I was just trying to throw a little gas on the fire.  I fully expect Sen. Lieberman to caucus with his Democratic "friends," the ones who tried to push him out.  But by doing so he'll be invalidating his own core principles in the war on terror.

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And if Lieberman has any proposals and legislation he wants put through, he's going to need his "friends" to vote for them. He already aligned himself by claiming the "outing" of Rumsfeld was a necessary thing to do. His "friends" may have turned their backs on him for election purposes but they did not turn their backs on him as far as remaining in the Democratic party. He has majority within the caucus and his main concern was keeping the majority so he was elected as an Independent but he is still very much a Democrat, a Democrat who one with all the Republicans voting for him. Got to love the irony.