Part of me really wanted to see Lieberman humiliated. But another part of me wondered how much this would help the cause: not much in the immediate future (another distraction spilling over into cable media coverage) but possibly more in the long term.

In a way, the worst part of Lieberman's chairmanship of the homeland security committee is already over. When Bush was in power we were depending on Joe and his committee to be a check on the president's power and Joe failed. But Bush is leaving soon and then Barack Obama will be in charge. Obama promised to leave Iraq as soon as logistically possible and he will be running the country. What could Joe Lieberman actually do now, as chairman of the committee on homeland security, that would truly prevent Obama from doing this? Joe Lieberman is not part of the command and control structure of the military.

And Joe should have held real, meaningful hearings on Katrina, but didn't. And it is a shame but now that Bush is leaving this simply won't be happening now, no matter who heads that committeee. The only consolation we have is knowing that Bush is probably headed straight to hell for what he did to the people of New Orelans; if there isn't actually a hell then one will have to be invented for him.

I'd also like to think that Joe may feel that he owes his survival to Obama now and will behave better as a result, but I seriously doubt Lieberman will change his ways.

So although the bad news is that Lieberman really let us down during a time when the Democrats were out of the White House and the limited power of a Senatorial committee chairmanship was all we had to resist the Bush agenda, the good news is that we are back in the White House until at least 2012 and, as a result, it is just not as significant who runs that committee.

Am I hopelessly naive on this one?