Lieberman Is Officially the New Zell Miller

That Joe Lieberman endorsed John McCain didn’t surprise me. That Lieberman would appear alongside McCain on the campaign trail, over and over again, barely raised an eyebrow. There are rumors that Lieberman is entertaining a prominent role at the Republican National Convention in September, which seems consistent with his character.

But Lieberman’s appearance on “This Week” yesterday was a stark reminder that stripping him of his committee chairmanship and driving him from the caucus should be high on the list of Senate Democrats’ priorities in 2009.

Stephanopoulos noted, for example, that Lieberman assured Connecticut voters in 2006 that he was committed to helping elect a Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, and asked about the senator going back on his word.

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Lieberman, Independent of Connecticut, said it is not the same party that made him its vice presidential candidate in 2000.

“It’s not the Bill Clinton-Al Gore party, which was strong internationalists, strong on defense, pro-trade, pro-reform in our domestic government,” he said. “It’s been effectively taken over by a small group on the left of the party that is protectionist, isolationist, and very, very hyperpartisan. So it pains me.”

Lieberman added that McCain is “a reformer, somebody who understands ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country and remembers the other part of the Kennedy inaugural, which said that we will bear any burden, pay any price to assure the survival and sustenance of liberty. That’s John McCain.”

There’s another member of the Senate Dem caucus who, not too long ago, talked the same way. His name was Zell Miller.

Michael Scherer explained: