It is certainly better treatment than a similarly behaving Republican could expect.

I hope that Reid extracted a good price in retrurn for allowing Joe to retain his Chair. At the very least I do not expect to see Joe on the stump for Sarah Palin in 2012, nor do I expect him to side with Republicans when they try to fillibuster everything.

The big test will come when George W. Bush arranges forhis own pardon. It will, I believe, take one of two forms:

A flat out pardon written by George w. Bush, for George w. Bush.

On January 19, 2009, a full pardon forDick C~heney, followed by a resignation by Geroge W. Bush, swearing in of DickCheney and a full pardon ofgeorge w.Bush by President Cheney.

My betting is on the second one because it involves no possiblity of constitutional challenge and because it would appeal to Bush/Cheney due to its blatant"stick in the eye" natur to the American people.

And 100% of Conservatives will defend either one of the above, due to their continued allegience to George W. Bush.

Of course congress can still have the last word because it can call private citizen Bush to testify of what he knows, with not invoking of theFifth Amendment. What is unfortunate is that Ex-President Bush would fight it and just refuse to testify. and he can count on continued 100% loyalty of Congressional Republicans, forever.

Senator Bayh's comments are all about what he HOPES Joe Lieberman will do. The fact is that Joe Lieberman is ALREADY an embittered person, wandering the halls of Congress, looking for ways to get back as those who he believes wronged him.

All that the Democrats can count on from Joe Lieberman is for Senator Joe to side with them on votes where they already have more than enough to win. On every single close vote, where Senator Lieberman's vote is crucial, I guarantee that Senator Joe will remember his bitterness and vote with Republicans, without exception.

Better to have a regular Republican, who you can call out for his/her partisanship when it happens than a closet Republican who is immune from criticism because you fear him. The Democrats are handing over too much power to Senator Joe.

If the Democrats stripped Joe Lieberman of his chair, he would not resign, go back to... what? A state that hates him now? Joe will caucus with or simple register as a Republican. On the first day, Republicans will hold a grand party, honoring the 'great man" Joe Lieberman. The second day Joe would disappear. The Republicans are certainly not going to strip one of their own of a committee slot (especially since there are fewer of them). So Joe would become doubly embittered. All that would be left would be a regular slot on FoxNews where Joe can tell the loyalists what terrible people Democrats are. But FoxNews has no shortage of those people anyway and would soon tire of Joe’s self-indulgent whining.

It would be the fate he truly deserves. But the Democrats are too weak to actually punish him, the way the Republicans would were it reversed.

e: "But the only way the Dems can effectively play the game is if Joe knows he can be quickly and easily replaced."

That will never happen.

Because the circumstances under which Joe will bolt the party will be the first chance he has to launch a witchhunt against President Obama on behalf of the Republicans. Which Chairman Lieberman is absolutely guaranteed to do. Then the Democrats will be scutting an "independent" investigation of their own President, which will be fodder for FoxNews (and the rest of the media) through 2012. They might as well begin filming the campaign commercials right now.

Bayh is giving the Republicans gfuaranteed campaign talking points for 2010 and 2012 right now. Not only is that spineless, it is dumb.

Re: "Last week, Lieberman met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and told Reid that if he lost his chairmanship, he'd leave the Democratic caucus."

Well, that about settles it. Spinless Reid will fold in front of Joe Lieberman just as he did in front of the Republicans for two years. Joe will get his way, and the Republican mole will be running Homeland Security in the Senate.

The same way the convent did.