On Bended Knee

Joe Lieberman is begging to stay relevant:

Bolstered by a newly expanded majority, Harry Reid met with Joe Lieberman on Thursday to sketch out the conditions by which the Connecticut independent could continue to caucus with Senate Democrats. But Lieberman did not accept Reid's initial offers, leaving his future in the caucus uncertain, and potentially setting off a campaign to pressure the Democratic steering committee to decide Lieberman's fate.

Reid offered Lieberman a deal to step down as chairman of the homeland security committee but take over the reins of another subcommittee, likely overseeing economic or small business issues officials said.

Immediately after his meeting with Reid, Lieberman told reporters that he had not made a decision about his future in the caucus, and appeared to launch his first public appeal to members of the Democratic steering committee, whose members decide committee chair assignments.

"I completely agree with President-elect Obama that we must now unite to get our economy going again and to keep the American people safe. that is exactly what I intend to do with my colleagues here in the Senate in support of our new president, and those are the standards I will use in considering the options that I have before me," Lieberman told reporters.

The thing is that Lieberman has very little leverage. There is no reason that Reid could possibly keep someone who continually defamed Barack Obama in the chairmanship of the committee that would oversee the White House. What's more, he was terrible at his job in the 110th Congress, practically never holding any oversight hearings. He's dead weight on the committee.

Lieberman is in no position to demand anything. He's not the crucial 60th vote, and he's never going to get re-elected in Connecticut. In the Republican caucus he'd be a minority of the minority, and the mouth-breathers would quickly tire of his moderate positions on certain issues. Reid has all the leverage and he ought to pull the trigger.

Here's Jane Hamsher:

My guess? Reid told him he can stay in the caucus if he steps down from his committee chairmanship (a campaign we started shortly after the 2006 election, thanks to everyone who participated with pitchforks and torches). I imagine Reid told him they'll wait to do anything until the other Senate races are decided, but that's the way it's going to go down. Those are the rather well-source rumors circulating, anyway.

Joe now goes to see if he can get a better deal from the GOP, knowing his chances of winning in Connecticut as a Republican in 2012 are about "zero."

What the heck could he possibly "get" from an even more ideologically rigid GOP? A ranking membership? The internal dissension would be enormous.

Reid is walking down the right path here, but he'd better watch it. It's bad enough that a swing-state Senator is in charge of the caucus to begin with. If he cozies up to Lieberman after all this, the outrage would be palpable.