McCain surrogate Lieberman also campaigned for Norm Coleman

I linked to this article in this morning's open thread, but thought it warranted its own post. Last month, Joe Lieberman was aggressively undermining the Democrat's campaign against Norm Coleman. That race is set for a recount and Joe's pals in the GOP are doing everything they can to create controversy.

But, this piece in The Hill about Lieberman's political treachery was written just one month ago. It seemed to capture the prevailing wisdom back then. Yet, somehow, McCain surrogate Joe Lieberman has wormed his way back into the good graces of some of his Senate colleagues. One month ago, Lieberman was undermining one of the top Democratic prospects:

In his latest break from the Democratic Party, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is defending Republican Sen. Norm Coleman (Minn.) from Democratic attacks in one of the nation's closest Senate races.

Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee who caucuses with Democrats and gives them their two-seat Senate majority, disputes partisan attacks that Coleman conducted inadequate oversight of the Iraq war as the top Republican on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI).

"Any suggestion Sen. Coleman stymied Democrats' investigations into Iraq-related matters is unfair and unfounded," Lieberman wrote this weekend in an op-ed in the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

The truth is that Lieberman never conducted investigations into Iraq-related matters in the first place. See, Lieberman is not only a political dirt-bag, he's an ineffective Senator and terrible chair of an important committee. For the past two years, it was Lieberman who stymied investigations.

From his perch as a Senate Chair, Lieberman has launched repeated attacks on his colleagues:

Since he lost the Democratic Senate primary in 2006, and later won a fourth term as an Independent, Lieberman has increasingly grown distant from his Democratic colleagues. As a foreign-policy hawk, he has repeatedly criticized the Democratic Party for trying to mandate a troop withdrawal from Iraq and for taking a "weak" stance on Iran.

Now, Democrats are taking a "weak" stance on Lieberman. In the way the Senate Democrats are capitulating to him, they're proving his point about being "weak.'

You'd think this would matter to the Senate Democrats:

He later alarmed his Democratic colleagues when he announced he would support Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) for president, and has increasingly angered Democratic leaders for becoming a leading surrogate for the Republican presidential nominee and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. After speaking in September at the Republican National Convention, Lieberman decided to skip weekly Democratic lunches because of the growing tensions between himself and his former party.

While he has donated money to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, he also has given cash to the reelection campaign of another endangered Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.

His advocacy for Coleman, who is locked in a tight battle with comedian Al Franken, may give Democratic leaders another reason to take away Lieberman's leadership position in the next Congress. Democrats expect that if they have a robust majority, the senator may lose the coveted chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The Senate Democrats ask us all for help all the time. They ask us for money. They ask us to support their candidates. And, we do. Because we believe in them and share their values -- and naively believe they'll sometimes do the right thing. So who gets the reward for the work we do while he's been undermining it? Joe Lieberman

If you're not happy about this, call your Democratic Senators. The main switchboard at the Capitol is 202-224-3121. And, maybe those incumbent Senators should ask Al Franken how he feels about Lieberman campaigning against him.