innonate

Obama’s first pardon of his Presidency — that of Senator Joe Lieberman for his support of McCain and under-bus-throwing of Obama — landed with a thud on the blogs yesterday.

But, that Senate Democrats allowed Lieberman to keep his Chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee caused an uproar among the liberal bloggosphere yesterday is not surprising.

Time and time again, amateur liberal bloggers have shown that they are good at digging up juicy stories, good at rallying support around the right people and issues, but really really bad at identifying important moments in leadership.

Obama’s first pardon of his Presidency — that of Senator Joe Lieberman — was such a clear and important display of leadership, it’s would almost be embarassing to miss.

Why not take the high road? What do we get with Lieberman tossed out?

A more “pure” Party?

What sad is that liberal bloggers don’t care that a pardon of Lieberman will undoubtedly yield far more liberal booty than the punishing of one man.

Pardoning Lieberman boosts liberals’ credentials as the solution-seeking Party.

Pardoning Lieberman keeps an important, senior vote on socially liberal issues working with (not just voting with) our Party.

And perhaps most importantly, pardoning Lieberman gives him a final chance.

Backing McCain and coming out so strongly against Obama was a huge second strike. He swung big and missed even bigger. Of course his first strike was being such a hawk to begin with, and losing his Democratic primary was a curveball he also missed (though recovered vindictively from).

So now we have Lieberman right where we want him — endebted to his party and in a senior role — it’s just sad that liberal bloggers can’t get over themselves and appreciate the act of leadership we just witnessed.