photo by nathanm

Joe Lieberman -- once and future Zel Miller -- no longer has his portrait on the walls of the Democratic Party headquarters in Hartford. Why this didn't happen after he left the Democratic Party and ran as an independent in the last election is anybody's guess, but his smirking weasel face is officially in a closet after his endorsement of John McCain.

NYT:

This is the latest steeply graded curve in the long, strange trip that is Mr. Lieberman’s career. Eight years ago he exhorted sweaty ironworkers in Boynton Beach, Fla., to join the Democratic cause. Four years ago he told voters in New Hampshire that President Bush was “a divisive leader.”

But four weeks ago, he returned to Boynton Beach to address 250 Republicans at a country club. This time, he deplored the Democrats’ “visceral” anger at Mr. Bush. He is skipping the Democratic National Convention in Denver, but may turn up at the rostrum of the Republicans’ conclave in Minneapolis.

“I suppose if Senator McCain is going to be nominated, and he asks me, I will go,” Mr. Lieberman said.

Oh really, Miss Scarlett, would you? I'm sure they'd be ever so grateful....

Thus far, his endorsement of Mr. McCain in December, when the polls had him as a long shot, has paid off like the daily double at Belmont. He has garnered attention and, as yet, paid no price in power or prestige.

But he has not amused his fellow Democrats, particularly in Connecticut, where many affect stony silence or ask to go off the record, the better to share their not-fit-for-a-family-newspaper assessment of this apostate.

“Look, I didn’t figure he was likely to go to the Democratic convention this year because someone would have gotten in his face,” said Nancy DiNardo, Connecticut’s Democratic chairwoman.

He's got dust bunnies hanging off his nose in some Hartford closet, he's loathed in his home state and afraid to go to the convention of the party for which he was once the Vice Presidential nominee.

I'd say that's a price.