I bet attention-whore Joe Lieberman is loving this extra time in the spotlight. I am Lieberman! I'm very important! Everyone is fighting over little old me!? Ehhhhxcellent!
Seriously, if there's anyone more deserving of being ignored by the party, the new administration and the blogotubes -- for better or worse -- it's Lieberman. History has shown that he clearly hates being ignored. But he also loves making the blogotubes angry. He's a great big bastard to be sure, but he craves all of this.
For what it's worth, I'm thinking that maybe the Democrats should keep him in the club, if only to deny him the ability to go around acting like a martyr and raising money on his sad-faced victim status. Then we quietly prepare to crush him in 2012. Meanwhile, I'm not so sure that losing an additional anti-filibuster vote is worth the satisfaction of taking away his chairmanship. I've found that it's more fun to exact revenge on someone who doesn't expect it.