Even douchebags aren't wrong ALL the time—Joe Lieberman will be the chief Senate sponsor of a bill to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Thanks, Joe.

 ...I was thinking we'd be better off accepting the Senate bill and moving on, but now Howard Dean—whose opinion I respect on this subject ahead of most anyone's—is saying we should kill the bill and go back to the House and start reconciliation. That would be the bold, "Fuck yeah!" thing to do. I'm not sure President Obama has the guts to do that at this point in time—he needs closure because he's had a year of seething hatred from the right and six or more months of incredible impatience and hysteria over dashed expectations from the left. It doesn't help him that the economy, while improving, is still considered in the dumps, something I think he's helped to improve, albeit imperfectly.

I'm pissed at the loss of the public option, I'm pissed at the loss of the Medicare buy-in, but maybe—just maybe—I'm way too pissed at the fact that one numbskull, greedy, vindictive bastard (Joe Lieberman) caused all of this. It was dispiriting reading the rage on progressive blogs over the news that the White House wanted to go along with pretty much all of Lieberman's demands in order to pass HCR. However, I think there is a point where disappointment or even justifiable anger turns back on us and hurts us much more in the end than the item causing the disappointment or justifiable anger.

Joe Lieberman was for the Medicare buy-in before he was WAY against it. Total douche.

Meanwhile, here is a funny and insightful explanation for Lieberman's actions—not cunning, but idiocy.

"Don't worry, I'll always have your back."

Of all the things progressives bemoan about the Obama Administration's learning curve nothing—nothing—tops its early and continuing failure to marginalize Joe Lieberman. Why they haven't vilified him to the point where he has no choice but to either become the Republican that he is or cave on health care is beyond me. If he were a Republican, then at least his bullshit would not be newsworthy.

The latest? Without even waiting for the CBO score to see if the already watered-down current HRC bill is fiscally responsible, he told Harry Reid face-to-face that he is against the ghost of a public option it still contains AND against Medicare at age 55 to the point where he won't just vote against it but would support a Republican filibuster. 

At some point, one of three things is going to HAVE to happen:

(1) We give up and let the Republicans sink health care reform, then spend the next 10 months and the following two years screaming bloody murder about the party of "NO" that killed health care reform.

(2) We give up and force parts of this through using reconciliation, which I've read about and understand to be no picnic, risking the ire of Independents, then spend the next 10 months and the following two years listening to the right screaming bloody murder about the party incapable of taking "NO" for an answer.

(3) We continue giving in until the final health care reform bill passed is completely devoid of any real reform, which is all Lieberman would accept since he's corrupted by the industry and is continuing to campaign for John McCain's long-dead presidential bid.

Or someone punches him in the face. I guess that is option four.

You'd have to be unconscious to believe Joe Lieberman's claim that he's against the public option because as a matter of conscience. He has no conscience. His loyalty is to Joe, to Israel (because unlike the Democratic Party, it hasn't ever pissed him off) and to the health-care CEOs who use his home state as a home base and have lined his (and his wife's) pockets forever and a day.

If he continues this hard line on filibustering, it can only mean he has zero intention of running again and is instead eyeing a cushy job post-Senate in the very field his vote would be protecting.

If that is the case, and it appears quite possible, then Harry Reid needs to grow a pair and move to reconciliation to get reform passed.

Get out of the way.

Since Joe Lieberman makes me fucking sick, the least he can do is vote for health care—which he waited till after Harry Reid's announcement to say he won't do. Please just strip this douche of his chairmanship and relegate him to history as the backstabbing DINO he is. He should be absolutely savagely attacked all over TV for this.

What is the take-away here?

The judgment is in and it turns out that New York's "Gov. David A. Paterson was acting within his powers when he issued an executive order requiring government agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside the state."

I wonder if this decision, however minor it is in the grand scheme of things, will be magnified in some way tonight or tomorrow at the Republican National Convention?

Did you watch any of it so far? You've got to love the pure, shameless Judas nature of Joe Lieberman, now a wee, white-haired, wizened old man. Just eight years ago, George W. Bush & Co. literally robbed him of the vice-presidency, and just this past week they robbed him of it again when the Bushies nixed Joe as McCain's veep. So what does he do? The Independent goes to the convention, calls himself a Democrat because that helps the Republicans more, lies through his false teeth about Obama's record and gives a gushy speech about how "God only made one John McCain." Maybe, but he made a whole lot of Joe Liebermans—they are the kinds of guys who sell you out unexpectedly and we've all encountered them.

Say it ain't so, Joe.

I think this convention is helpful to Obama in some ways. After all, does anything positive that George W. Bush has to say (albeit in a lukewarm way) or that Joe Lieberman or Fred Thompson have to say really reflect positively on McCain?

I expect he'll get a bump from this week, and I am bracing myself for a very savvy, populist, "real-person" speech from the former Mayoress Of Wasilla. So yeah, a bump in the polls for their ticket is coming. I hope it's a baby bump that arrives last minute and disappears soon after.