No business like Joe business

Why was Joe Lieberman endorsing the Medicare extension plan just three months ago, even though he now threatens to filibuster any bill which contains such a notion? (He's even lying, I think, within the context of the video -- but let's let that business pass for now.) Is he acting at the behest of the White House? Or -- interesting thought -- perhaps he is acting at the behest of the Republicans, who (conceivably) have offered him a cushy position which he can assume after the voters of Connecticut kick him out...

I'm not sure that he is doing this at the bidding of the health insurance industry, because I'm not sure that the industry really wants to be dealing with the over 55s. They get sick more often than younger folk do.

So why is Joe doing this? Why did he insist on ruining one of the few good things about this legislation?

Is it possible that the Obama administration secretly wants rid of this bill, and has asked Lieberman to kill it? That's the kindest view, but I don't consider the theory likely.

The partial screen cap to your left comes from TPM. That combination of image and text seems to offer a snapshot of everything that is corrupt and wrong with this administration and this Senate. You should read the comments evinced by that story: The poor bastards who read TPM regularly are petrified that they will soon have to apologize to the PUMA contingent, whom they still despise.

It's obvious to me that Lieberman has a hidden agenda, one that has little or nothing to do with ideology. To me, this looks more like ye olde bribe-ola, even though the pay-off may not be strictly monetary. You know the old joke: An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, stays bought.

Incidentally, Darcy Burner at Huffington Post has produced a review of this legislation that is so scathing, one might almost conclude that she originally wrote it for Corrente. Matthew Ygelesias also has some noteworthy observations:

Can’t liberals be just as stiff-necked as Lieberman? Sure, they could. But liberals members do have an incentive to compromise—the tens of thousands of people who die every year for lack of health insurance. The leverage that Lieberman and other “centrists” have obtained on this issue (and on climate change) stems from a demonstrated willingness to embrace sociopathic indifference to the human cost of their actions.

Polls say that the public option (which the average dullard believes to be the same as socialized health insurance) is popular. Polls also say that the Afghanistan war is not popular. Yet we are doubling down on Afghanistan and gutting even the flimsy public option passed by the House. Can you explain this situation? I can't.

Well, it's Joe Lieberman's country now. You and I just live in it.