Joe Lieberman Wants Liberals to Suffer

Joe Lieberman rejected the Democrats’ Medicare buy-in compromise mostly because “his objective really is to make liberals suffer,” writes Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com. Lieberman knew that though they might have wailed and moaned, liberals would have been happy with the Medicare expansion. “It was a br’er rabbit compromise—but do please Senart’er—don’t fling me in dat brier-patch.”

Lieberman’s a lot of things, but he’s “smarter than br’er Fox,” says Silver. His real goal is to punish the online progressives who supported Ned Lamont’s insurgency, and the compromise wouldn’t have done that. Nor did it meet the “somewhat less vulgar” goals of insurance industry friend Ben Nelson. Neither will support reform unless liberals completely surrender on the public option. They should, says Silver, but might not; they’d lose face, and worse, lose it to Lieberman, “a person whom they singularly detest.”