Jonathan raises the possibility that by giving Lieberman a pass, Obama could be operating on the assumption that he'll "have an easier go in forwarding his legislative agenda in the Senate with Lieberman beholden to him than Lieberman weaker, but mad at him."
I strongly disagree.First, there's really no evidence to support an assumption that Lieberman will feel either constrained or in debt now that Obama's allowed him to keep his gavel. Why? Because given his past actions, there's no reason to imagine Lieberman will finally start operating in good faith. For example, after Obama campaigned for Lieberman in his primary against Lamont and then stayed almost completely out of the general election, Joe certainly didn't act like like he owed his seat to Obama. Quite the contrary: Lieberman proceeded to endorse McCain and smear Obama throughout the Presidential election.
I also don't agree that "Lieberman could make Obama's life more difficult as an angry gadfly (a Tom Coburn, as it were) than he would as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee." Had Lieberman been stripped of his Homeland Security chair, he would not have bolted to the Republican caucus (where he'd have less power). Rather, it was only an empty threat meant to sidetrack the traditional media. There's simply no way Lieberman would have started voting like a Republicans on more issues than he does now. But he would have been without subpoena power.
As I and others (including Josh Marshall and Jane Hamsher) have argued, the best governing decision would have been to replace Lieberman as chairman, since he's actually done a pretty awful job. Instead, Lieberman's record was ignored, and his dirty, gutter political tactics were condoned.
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