Obama-Lieberman Showdown

What I wouldn't give to have been a fly on the wall during this conversation yesterday between Senators Obama and Lieberman, since that's probably the only way we'd ever know what was said:

Furthermore, during a Senate vote Wednesday, Obama dragged Lieberman by the hand to a far corner of the Senate chamber and engaged in what appeared to reporters in the gallery as an intense, three-minute conversation.

While it was unclear what the two were discussing, the body language suggested that Obama was trying to convince Lieberman of something and his stance appeared slightly intimidating.

Using forceful, but not angry, hand gestures, Obama literally backed up Lieberman against the wall, leaned in very close at times, and appeared to be trying to dominate the conversation, as the two talked over each other in a few instances.

Senator Lieberman is a supremely frustrating figure for me. For most of my teenage years, and even during college, I considered myself a very moderate Democrat, and counted among my political idols moderate Republicans senators like Jacob Javits, Clifford Case, and Edward Brooke. When Al Gore tapped Senator Lieberman for his ticket, I thought it was a very interesting choice and I supported them.

The past seven years, however, have chilled my opinion of Senator Lieberman, to say the least. And I think it is because Senator Lieberman is not a moderate or a centrist in any meaningful sense. On most issues, he is a liberal. On the war in Iraq, he has allied himself with the neo-con right. The war in Iraq is and has been the most important issue for the last 5 years, and the one in which a strong, bipartisan centrist voice has been needed to walk the administration off the ledge. So Senator Lieberman's failure to be a voice of restraint and his enabling of the worst of the neoconservative tendencies has been most disappointing.