Senate Leadership Forgives Lieberman

clipped from www.politico.com Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) offered a qualified apology -- and accepted a relatively light punishment -- in exchange for a deal that keeps him firmly in the Senate Democratic fold.   Democrats, meeting in the Capitol this morning, voted secretly to allow Lieberman to keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee -- despite his support for John McCain and criticism of Barack Obama during the presidential race. Lieberman's punishment for what many Democrats saw as an unacceptable betrayal: He  will lose his seat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, where he has been an outspoken critic of Bush administration global warming policies. Sources who were inside the meeting said Lieberman did not apologize for supporting McCain during the campaign, but that he did say he was sorry for some of the statements he made about Obama.

"It's a resolution of reconciliation and not retribution...I appreciate it," Joementum is reported as saying.

For those of you keeping track of these sorts of things, the Democratic congressional leadership has established that nothing you do, no matter how shitty and disloyal, will get you kicked out of the party. From the same leadership who established the principle that there's no such thing as an impeachable offense, this shouldn't come as a surprise.

Seems bass-ackward to me, though -- he loses the seat where he was doing good work and keeps the position where he can do the most harm. This stands a good chance of biting us all in the ass down the road.