A reality is that the Ds aren't going to hit 60 anyway Theres not much difference between 58 and 59 and knowing that the Senators would have thrown him out if not for the intercession of Obama.

Obama scores points with Lieberman and his constituency, meanwhile pisses off many Democrats and will be interpreted as a weak leader by those who do not understand the concept of cooperation. There will be future breaks from Obama's leadership by those who think they could score points by doing so.

If Hillary is going to be Secretary of State, it would have been worth losing Lieberman to send her the message that this mandate, this administration is about Obama's agenda and not hers. I can almost see that she and Bill will now assume they can follow their own program without a meaningful response from Obama.

(I wonder if he'd appoint Hillary, she'd resign her Senate seat, someone else be appointed, and then fire Hillary?)

Of course there are good, solid selfish reasons for keeping Lieberman. Still, I can't recall any administration which would have bitten that self-serving bullet and not excommunicated the fellow. It's frightening to think what the blind ideologues of the current administration would have done.

Arf