Progressives Outraged at Senate Vote on Lieberman

Joseph Lieberman will retain his chairmanship of the Senate's Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee - and boy are the netroots hordes up in the air about it!

Here's Jane Hamsher, who once attacked Lieberman in blackface:

No matter what Joe Lieberman does, the people who are protecting him hate you much more than they hate him.

Well, hmm, thanks Jane! And, really, who can blame them?

The Politico has more:

The progressive netroots is expressing outrage Tuesday over the 42-12 Democratic Senate caucus vote allowing Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) to remain chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

“I think we’ve now learned that Joe Lieberman is the smartest politician in D.C. He knew Democrats were spineless capitulators who would cave at the merest threat,” Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas wrote in a post on the site. “He’s probably having a great laugh about it just about now.”

“It appears as though four in five Democrats in the United States Senate are content with their committee leadership including a member who actively campaigned not only for the Republican Presidential nominee but also Republican Senators up for reelection this fall,” MyDD blogger Jonathan Singer chimed in. “I knew the Senate was a collegial place... I just didn't know it was this collegial.”

Talking Point Memo’s Joshua Marshall, meanwhile, ran the mocking headline “Breaking: Lieberman expelled from Pilates class in Senate gym” on his site.

Frustrated by the seeming inaction from party leaders, some have already begun gathering pledges to donate and work for whatever Democrat runs against Lieberman when his Senate term is up in 2012.

“The race starts now ... whoever runs against Joe Lieberman,” reads the pledge being circulated by FireDogLake’s Jane Hamsher. “Sign-up to pledge your support in Connecticut's 2012 Senate race against Joe Lieberman. By signing on today, you promise to give money, volunteer, make calls from a distance, and help defeat Joe Lieberman in any way you can.”

Another site, laughatlieberman.com, is organizing prank phone calls to the senator’s office. The site, which was launched today and has been featured on the Huffington Post and elsewhere, urges people to post a video on YouTube of themselves calling Lieberman’s office and laughing at whoever answers the phone until they hang up.

Lieberman has long been a target of the liberal netroots, which played a critical fundraising role in his loss to Ned Lamont in the 2006 Democratic primary. But Lieberman became a true pariah of the online left for serving not only as an ally of Republican presidential nominee John McCain, but also as one of his top surrogates.

The 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee lit into now President-elect Barack Obama repeatedly on the campaign trail, calling the Democrat inexperienced, untested and even seeming to question his patriotism.

Standing next to McCain during an August campaign stop in York, Pennsylvania, Lieberman said the election was a choice “between one candidate, John McCain, who has always put his country first, worked across party lines to get things done, and one candidate that has not.”

The left wants a complete excommunication of Lieberman. They aleady tried with the 2006 Lamont challenge to Lieberman's seat, and now failing in pressuring the Democratic leadership to punish the apostate, they're already gearing up for a new round. Don't be surprised if blackface comes back in style.