Sen. Joe Lieberman is an awful person who lacks principles. He won re-election in 2006 by pretending he was against the Iraq War. After spending a career advocating Democratic domestic policies, he spent the 2008 spouting conservative distortions of core Democratic principles. He is more motivated by personal pique than the public interest. He is dishonest and untrustworthy.

And it completely doesn't matter that he kept his committee chairmanship.

What matters? Passing legislation that averts a climate crisis, provides health care to all, and modernizes our infrastructure.

We get those things done, we not only get the economy back on track.

We not only make clean energy and health care affordable and accessible to all.

We show that liberal progressive government can deliver, and we lock it in for a generation.

The chief threat to achieving these goals is falling short of the 60 votes needed in the Senate to cut off filibusters.

On any given issue, it is possible that getting the 60 vote supermajority will require scratching and clawing.

There's not a lot of room for error, and it is myopic to unnecessarily alienate anyone that could be in the 60 -- regardless of how much of a petulant jerk he or she is.

(And if we're not doing business with petulant jerks, we won't get 10 votes in the Senate, let alone 60.)

As Lieberman has shown that he is driven more by personal pique than principle, giving the baby his bottle is perfectly understandable, if decidedly unpleasant.

Because if Lieberman helps squelch filibusters on the big issues that matter, it is a very small price to pay.

Also, as a secondary matter, no one seems to think stripping Lieberman of his environmental subcommittee chairmanship is significant. But arguably it's more significant than his Homeland Security committee chairmanship.

Again, global warming is one of the issues that truly matter. Lieberman's subcommittee was the one responsible for global warming legislation.

And the legislation he drafted last year was insufficient to the challenge, yet it became the main global warming bill.

Now, he will not play a critical role in drafting global warming legislation. That's a pretty big deal.