The gamesmanship in the Senate right now is infuriating, but I found
this analysis illuminating. That is, while Lieberman is a putz, in this instance he's just cover for a lot of unhappy moderates and conservatives in the Democratic caucus. To me, the key bit is in the comments, about what it means to really have a majority:
What this whole debacle has clearly settled once and for all is that after you pass the 50 Senators needed to win a majority (and all the benefits that come with that), having more Democrats is far less important than having better Democrats, because simply expanding our caucus in the Senate is utterly meaningless if we do not have 60 of them who are willing to support procedural votes on legislation they intend to vote against.
Indeed, and that latter is what it really means to be on a team. Lieberman is definitely not, but he's not really alone. There's also some interesting discussion about the historical (obstructionist) purpose of the Senate itself...
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