I think it’s fair to say that no one yanks my political chain quite like Joe Lieberman. I don’t know why, if I’m being honest. If I were more enlightened, I might be able to find it in myself to be more compassionate and accepting of Joe. Even if I’m not there yet, there are plenty of other smarmy lying position-shifting power-hungry old white dudes in Congress that I could be hating on. Except.

Except none of them are quite like Joe. Back when he was just a Republican in Democrat clothing, I gave him the same derision I shared with the other panderers to the right who remained Democrats because that’s what their home states and regions demanded in order to continue to be elected. That was, generally speaking, the problem for Democrat true believers, not so much a problem for me. The Democrats in general, and Joe in particular, really started to get my goat when he was selected as the Democrat candidate for vice-president. Surely they could have found an actual Democrat for that position? Bygones, water under the bridge, et cetera. Let’s move on.

Having been the millstone around the Democrats neck — why vote for a Republican in Democrat clothing when we can just vote for an actual Republican? being what any thinking person would say — Joe just carried on voting with the other party. Until, you know, the Democrats back in his home state got tired of that and he lost his party primary as an incumbent. Oops. Not to be deterred, Joe left the party.

That’s right, Joe. It sounds like you need to be reminded of this: you LEFT THE PARTY, which makes you NOT A DEMOCRAT. Now, if you had joined the Republican party, in accord with both your stated politics and your voting record, I might have a little more respect for you (it would be hard to have less). But you didn’t. Because that would be career-ending for you, a Senator from a state in the Northeast, and you know it. Instead you just vote with them, shuck and jive for them, and lie about your party affiliation on national TV. Way to stand by your convictions, Joe! Not.

Of course, it would be a little harder for Joe to lie about his party affiliation with a straight face if the Democrats hadn’t rewarded his defection from the party and his Republican voting record by making him a committee chair. That’s right: Joe Lieberman, the Democrat incumbent that his party didn’t want, who is no longer a Democrat at all, holds a committee chair position of the majority. Please tell me you knew that already. This right here is why I leave the Democrat-praising to the true believers. When the party stops rewarding Republicans in Independent clothing with chair positions — positions they only have to dole out because a lot of people worked their arses off two years ago to get actual Democrats elected to office — that’s when I might consider supporting the party as a whole.

Of course, by the time that unlikely scenario happens we’ll likely have a whole new actual opposition party on the left for me to get behind.