I’ve pointedly ignored Joe Lieberman for a while now. The man just grates on me for obvious reasons. If there’s one thing that grinds my gears, it’s anyone who throws both party and supporters under the bus in power grabs and Holy Joe has provided me with so much gear-grinding all I’ve got left is cylinders.

Awful analogy aside, I was downright gleeful to read that Barack Obama may have delivered a little ultimatum to Joementum, telling him to shape up or ship out. At least that’s an assumption, for all I know he could have told Joe to stop bringing Pepsi to the party get-togethers and actually contribute something that requires effort. I don’t know.

The point is that the last two years have been torturous in all things Lieberman. With the Democrats barely holding onto a majority in the Senate, Joe has been the potential tipping point, and as an independent he could at any time choose to nominally or de facto throw the majority to the Republicans if so inclined.

Thanks to this, he’s been able to basically pull down his pants and waggle his shriveled old genitals at the Democrats and the moment they start to get mad and tell him to pull up his damn pants, pretends like he’s going to “accidentally” fall onto the red side of the fence. So the Democrats have been forced to tolerate him because, as it stands, he’s needed.

So you know what? Let me make this simple: fuck Joe Lieberman.

Y’hear that? Fuck ‘im. Lieberman’s gambit was incredibly shortsighted this time around. He created a little situation that worked to his advantage in the near term but offered nothing in the long haul. Let me explain.

Dick Morris is a flaming douchebag. That has nothing to do with what I’m about to say, but I felt like saying it. Anyway, the man was on FOX recently saying that the Democrats are “the party that cannot lose” this November. It was in the interest of making a stupid point about why Obama needs Hillary Clinton as his running mate, but let’s just stick with the first sentence: the Democrats are the party that cannot lose.

On that point, I agree. Come November we’re going to see something amazing. The Democrats are going to find an even larger majority in both houses. You heard it, potentially a filibuster-proof one in the Senate. In every single poll, Democrats are doing better than Republicans in the abstract by wide margins, so while person-to-person Obama may not run away with the win by a country mile, in the Congressional races where fewer people know what the hell’s going on we can expect an even bluer Legislative branch.

This is where Lieberman’s little master plan begins to unravel. The right, let’s face it, loves Lieberman the traitorous Democrat. He’s fantastic from their perspective. A “principled” Democrat who isn’t afraid to go against his party, coincidentally in a way that the right really agrees with. He’s on their side in a way that lets them claim him as an ally and accuse everyone else of being ideological and party-lockstep.

As a brief tangent, Lieberman going against the Democrats on the war doesn’t take balls. What does is to be a Kucinich or Russ Feingold. To stand up and take the “crazy” position that everyone wants privately but is too scared of being called a “radical” to say out loud. Russ Feingold was the only senator, the only Senator to vote against the PATRIOT Act. That’s being courageous. Siding with the opposition knowing they’ll be your best friend isn’t being strong and principled, it’s cowardice.

Here’s the dirty little secret though. The right loves Joe Lieberman the Democrat, they do not want Joe Lieberman the Republican. When he stands up and stumps for McCain and trashes Obama, he’s their ace in the hole: a Democrat defying his party to show just how gosh darn much he supports John McCain or wants us to win in Iraq or whatever. He’s being used by the GOP simply because of his willingness to do the aforementioned genital-waggling at his own party.

Look at Joe Lieberman’s track record: the man is a liberal and a damn good one. Pro-choice, pro-gay-rights, big on energy independence, 0% from the Christian Coalition, the works. If you just went by that, he should the left’s darling. The Iraq War has seen him, and frankly everyone else, ignore 95% of his political positions and define him as the Democrat that hates Democrats and stumps for Republicans. Nevermind that he agrees with the Dems on almost everything, he’s out there pumping Bush and knocking Obama.

Endearing himself to the right while caucusing with the Democrats has enabled him to be needed by both sides. All that goes away as soon as the Democratic majority breaks over 50. Suddenly Lieberman isn’t needed to keep majority. The Democrats have no reason to give a shit who he caucuses with and won’t need to try and keep in his good graces.

That leaves him in an awkward position because no one’s going to want him. The Democrats have proven he’s unwanted as he lost his primary bid in Connecticut, and the Republicans have no reason to want a flaming liberal who just happens to agree with them on Iraq in their party. Holy Joe is going to be burning his bridge at both ends (and yes, I’m aware that I combined two idioms).

So, once again, fuck Joe Lieberman. If he wants to deliver the key note speech at the Republican Convention, let him. In fact, let him break from the Democrats entirely. He’s been kissing asses on the right side of the aisle like mad these past three years, why not let him hop over entirely? Let him see how well that goes.