Inventing Joe

by digby

Reader Jon S writes in:

I had an incredible flash of deja vu reading the Lieberman “apology” story at TPM. Didn’t he do this same “I’m so very sorry I had to take a giant crap on all of you, but now I extend the olive branch and want to come back to the fold” bit after stumping for McCain and saying ugly stuff about Obama just a year ago?[yes he did — ed]

At this point, it’s simply not possible for me to believe that the Dems are actually falling for this “I’m so very sorry…” act. The only explanation for why he keeps getting let back in is that they actually /want/ him around to play “bad cop,” so that they can say to progressives “we tried, but we just couldn’t get that black sheep Joe on board.”

I mean, is it possible that, despite public appearances, Holy Joe really is a genuine Democratic team player–it’s just that the Dems aren’t on our team, here? Think about it: if it wouldn’t be for Joe, the Dems wouldn’t have an excuse to not pass progressive reforms. If he didn’t exist, The Village would have to invent him.

I think there’s something to this. With Republicans almost entirely laying out the Democrats needed some of their own to ensure that the liberals didn’t get out of hand. It wasn’t a problem finding them. And Lieberman was more than happy to take the blame. Indeed, he revels in it. He’s a very useful fellow.

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