Or alternate title, "I know it was you Fredo (Joe), you broke my heart."
Or second alternate title, "Tell Mike(Barrack) it was only business. I always liked him." (Tessio/Lieberman to Hagen/Biden)
Lieberman declared himself an "Independent" some years ago and defeated the Democratic nominee for Senate from his state. Then, he supported the Republican nominee for president this year. He not only endorsed McCain but campaigned for him. He not only campaigned for him but spoke at the Republican convention. He had promised to only be supportive of his friend McCain and not speak negatively about Obama. But, he ended up going negative on Obama. This is a former Democratic nominee for vice president that turned his back on his former party and its nominee this time.
So, what do the Democrats do to punish Lieberman for pulling a Benedict Arnold? What would Michael Corleone do? Well, we know what Michael did to Tessio and his own brother when they betrayed the family. I'm not saying the mafia and political parties operate the same way (they kind of do except without the violence/killing and it's legal) but, when a political figure goes against their party or their former party one would expect there to be some type of consequence, especially when the betrayed party just won both chambers of the Congress and the White House. What would Karl Rove do? But, the question that really matters is what did the Dems do in response to Lieberman jumping ship? Would they kick him out of their voting caucus? Take away his chairmanship and committee seats? Exile him to the wasteland of a Senator truly without a party?
Nope. The Dems did pretty much nothing. A slap on the wrist. They took away one committee seat and let him keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. That's all. And Obama led the charge to let bygones be bygones. Why? Maybe because the Dems are nice and really like Lieberman. No, that's not it. It may be because the Dems are so close to that magical 60 vote filibuster buster in the Senate they can taste it. So if they have to make nice with Lieberman to get closer to 60 they will and they did. The Dems did take away a committee seat to begin to satisfy those who wanted political blood. Now they just have to hope Franken pulls out a miracle in Minnesota or bank on turning some moderate Senate Republicans to their side on key votes to overcome any filibuster. For Lieberman though, he essentially got away with political murder because the situation allowed him to. Had the Dems only been at about 50-55 seats in the Senate he may have ended up taking a political swim with the fishes for betraying his former Democratic policitcal "family".
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15712.html
