Bye bye, Joe Lieberman

I never liked you anyway.

Before you stood in the well of the Senate in 1998 and whined your way through a sanctimonius speech on sin, I hardly knew you. You told us you "felt lonely out there" as you stood alone for truth and honor. Whatever. I saw you as another self-righteous politician willing to overlook greater sins as you joined a Republican mob intent on destroying a Democratic presidency, the country be damned.

Yeah, I voted for you in 2000, but not because I liked you. I voted for you because Al Gore, in a misguided attempt to distance himself from Bill Clinton, stuck your name on his ticket. Don't kid yourself -- my vote was for Al, not for you. You saw religious significance in Al's choice of running mates. I noticed that your faith in winning came in second to your personal ambition when you refused to strike your name from your own Senate campaign in Connecticut.

As your admiration for the wisdom of George Bush blossomed, you grew to see yourself as America's senator, unbeholding to the lowly, "partisan" voters of your state. Like your kissin' buddy, you found it annoyingly easy to deny the obvious. And like spitballer Zell Miller, you haven't left the Democratic Party -- the party left you. But of course. The party is passe . . . "too partisan." You're way too big for the li'l old rules that apply to others -- especially the one about the candidate with the most votes winning.

Democrats outside your home state rejected your message in the 2004 presidential primaries, and now the voters of Connecticut have followed suit. The game is over, yet you insist it's only halftime. You claim to be a good Democrat. You might as well call yourself a Buddhist.

Move on, Joe. There are plenty of places for you, but one of them is not a campaign you've already lost.