Joe Lieberman has become the Balloon Boy dad of the Senate Democratic caucus, a fame-whore so addicted to media attention that he hatches ever-more-desperate and risky schemes that sell out his "family" to earn press attention.

Progressives can only hope that, like Richard Heene, Lieberman will finally be exposed as a fame-seeking fraudster after his latest stunt, Tuesday's threat to filibuster any bill for healthcare reform that includes a public option.

No one who's been paying attention should be surprised by Lieberman's move, yet the Washington press corps responded as if they'd never heard of the boy who cried wolf. This is Lieberman's schtick, the only act that's ever consistently gotten him ratings.

Lieberman crashed and burned as a presidential candidate in 2003, after his self-coined "Joementum" carried him to a pathetic fifth-place showing in the crucial New Hampshire Democratic primary. And he wasn't too much of a hit as a vice-presidential candidate, either, sucking up to Dick Cheney in debates and underwhelming voters with his trademark Droopy Dog jowly drone.

But what's consistently gotten Lieberman the attention he so craves is when he positions himself as the tough-love disciplinarian who scolds, punishes and hurts his party, supposedly for its own good. He got a taste of fame in the 1990s as the sanctimonious scold of the Senate, challenging the perception that his party was the more permissive by railing against sexually explicit music lyrics and violence in video games.

The press fawned over him in 1998 when he took to the floor of the Senate to verbally horsewhip Bill Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky. When Democrats questioned George Bush's rush to war, Lieberman questioned their patriotism. And last year, Lieberman made a desperate grab for some waning limelight by campaigning for the defeat of his party's nominee for president and endorsing John McCain.

Lieberman won re-election in 2006 in part by convincing Connecticut voters that he was still a Democrat on every issue but the war. Despite his history of blocking universal healthcare efforts, he claimed: "I can do more [than Ned Lamont] for you and your families to get something done to make healthcare affordable, to get universal health insurance." Many of the Connecticut voters who stuck with Lieberman in 2006 have figured out they were duped, and now regret being stuck with him in 2012.

Polls have repeatedly shown that Lamont would beat Lieberman in a rematch, and that a well-known Democratic challenger would crush him in 2012. But Lieberman seems unconcerned about re-election at this point. His fundraising is nearly at a standstill.

And Lieberman can't possibly claim to be representing his Connecticut constituents by opposing a the public option. Fully 64% of Connecticut voters support a public option, including 61% of independents. But there's one constituency in the state with an interest in the status quo: the powerful for-profit health insurance industry.

Stock prices for health insurance companies, including Hartford-based insurance giant Aetna, plummeted on Wall Street Monday when Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, announced that the Senate bill would include a version of the public option which would compete with corporate profiteers. But they dramatically rebounded yesterday immediately following Lieberman's announcement that he would filibuster a final vote on any bill containing a public option.

After Lieberman literally campaigned against everything Barack Obama stood for, it should be a surprise to no one that he is opposing the most important item on the president's domestic agenda this year. Senate Democrats should stand strong and refuse to give into Lieberman's threats. Better yet, they should do the last thing that folks like Richard Heene and Joe Lieberman want: refuse to give him attention. Unfortunately, their recent track record suggests they'll do the opposite.

It's hard to know who's auditioning harder for the role of Mayumi Heene in this Senate reality show, as so many of Lieberman's Democratic colleagues have exhibited fawning, submissive enabling of this man. Even after Lieberman spent 2008 campaigning to defeat Obama, Reid rewarded him with the chairmanship of the powerful homeland security committee, saying: "We need every vote. He's with us on everything but the war." How's that working out, Harry?

Lieberman's "other half" in the Connecticut delegation, Chris Dodd, who Obama anointed as the standard-bearer for healthcare reform in the Senate after the death of Ted Kennedy, inexplicably said on Tuesday said that Lieberman should not face retribution from the caucus if he follows through on his threat to block Obama's bill. How many times do these guys have to be punched in the face before they break up with Lieberman once and for all?

This is where the press should come in. The truth is, Lieberman's stated objections to the the public option are as flimsy and full of air as Balloon Boy's mylar and helium contraption. Thus far, however, only a few reporters have bothered to debunk Lieberman's bogus claim that the public option will add to the deficit, an assertion contradicted by the Congressional Budget Office's figures.

Lieberman and I are from the same hometown in Connecticut. He spoke at my graduation from our shared alma mater, Stamford High School. Local political legend has it that Lieberman won his very first campaign, for class president at Stamford High, with a poster picturing him perched on the roof his house reading "Vote for me or I'll jump". The last thing Lieberman's colleagues in the Senate caucus should do is give in to his threats once again. Ignore him. Let him jump. Or better yet, after all this, push him out.