On the other hand, the most Lieberman accomplished with months and months of nonstop campaigning was to push McCain support in his home state of Connecticut to 38 percent. Treachery is bad, but inept treachery is easier to get over. Since Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, needs the vote, you could understand him telling Lieberman that he’s still welcome.

Lieberman, however, apparently is demanding that he also be allowed to keep his chairmanship of the homeland security committee. CNN reported that he turned down appointments to less prestigious posts and went home to mull his options. I know what you’re wondering, but Lieberman did not promise to drown himself if Connecticut failed to go for John McCain.

The Republicans are being way more nasty to Sarah Palin than the Democrats are to Lieberman. They’ve been portraying her as both a shopaholic and a woman who walks around in nothing but a bath towel, a hillbilly who’s also a prima donna. The leakathon climaxed this week when Fox News’s Carl Cameron announced that Palin did not know that Africa was a continent.

Palin says this is untrue. But the worst part is that if these people get any meaner, we’re going to wind up feeling sorry for her. This is not something we are looking forward to, Republicans, and we will resent you for it.

Another bad role model on the postelection manners front is the House minority leader, John Boehner, who called Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s future White House chief of staff, “an ironic choice for a president-elect who has promised to change Washington, make politics more civil and govern from the center.”

The only possible argument for this kind of language was that it was actually not all that inaccurate.

Still, nobody should want to be first in line to trash an administration that doesn’t even exist yet. Would it have killed Boehner to say something conciliatory? Something like: “It will be good to see a familiar face in the new White House, and I want Rahm to know that I am not mad anymore about the time he bit me on the ankle.”

Setting a much better example, Senator Graham called Emanuel “a wise choice” who “understands the need to work together.” Of course, Graham is undoubtedly hoping that if he’s nice enough, the Democrats will forget about you-know-what.