pic via matthewnstoller at flickr.com

One of the true traditions of the Village is giving the the recently deceased or retiring cocktail party attendees an obsequious sendoff. An “art form” practiced since the Pierce Administration by David Broder. Broder’s columns on Joe McCarthy and Theodore Bilbo likely focused on their mutual love of the then segregated Washington Redskins.

But Broder hasn’t written a column in several weeks and somebody needs to get the hell into the breach and say something nice about Joe Lieberman as he departs for that seven figure FoxNews commenting deal.

Enter Ezra Klein, and whoever writes his headlines:

Joe Lieberman: Democratic hero?

Hey, thanks for the question mark at least.

Contained within the short prose, is the self-evident nature of Lieberman’s regard for no one but himself and his donors:

Among other things, he skipped the meetings where Democrats were trying to work out a compromise on the public option, and then he killed the Medicare buy-in proposal they’d developed — despite endorsing that exact proposal months before. In doing so, he doomed a great piece of policy, and by doing it at the last minute, endangered the rest of the bill, too.

But he ended up voting for the legislation he’d damage severely and made significantly worse for Americans but made better for the Hartford, AETNA, and Magellan. Oh, and he endorsed John McCain and Sarah Palin.

What a guy, what a Democrat.