Like you, I was awfully perplexed when Al Gore picked Joe Lieberman as his running mate back in 2000. WTF? I mean, Al had enough problems generating excitement all by himself, but Joe Lieberman? Ouch. He may well have lost the election for Gore just by his boring quotient alone.

So then Connecticut Democrats finally had enough of his pro-war idiocy and tapped Ned Lamont, a fairly progressive guy, as their Senate candidate, booting ole Joe to the curb.

But Joe, whose ego must span the entire state, from New York to Rhode Island and probably beyond, couldn’t have that. So he added himself as an independent candidate for Senate, taking with him a bunch of Republicans who knew damn well their candidate, whoever he was, didn’t have a chance in hell of being elected.

Result: Joe returns to the Senate on the votes of Republicans. And boy is he paying them back for the favor. Shit, the guy even endorsed and campaigned for John McCain.

LIEBERMAN: A public option plan is unnecessary. It has been put forward, I’m convinced, by people who really want the government to take over all of health insurance. They’ve got a right to do that; I think that would be wrong.

But worse than that, we have a problem even greater than the health insurance problems, and that is a debt — $12 trillion today, projected to be $21 trillion in 10 years.

WALLACE: So at this point, I take it, you’re a “no” vote in the Senate?

LIEBERMAN: If the public option plan is in there, as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote because I believe debt can break America and send us into a recession that’s worse than the one we’re fighting our way out of today. I don’t want to do that to our children and grandchildren.

So let me see if I have this right. First, we don’t need a public option. By “we,” I presume Joe must mean rich fucks like him, because 46 million Americans who don’t have insurance, most because they can’t afford it, beg to differ.

Second, debt is a bigger problem than Americans dying because they don’t have health care.

And third, Joe’s gonna filibuster the health care bill if it has a public option in it because … because … the conservatives have put us in massive debt?

That just doesn’t make sense.

Back when Joe came to the Senate as a Republican-backed independent, Harry Reid let him keep his Democratic seniority and committee chairmanships because he promised to back Democratic bills

Well, the cows have come home, Harry. And look at Joe now.  I don’t suppose Joe’s ridiculous opposition to a public option has anything at all to do with Connecticut’s No. 1 industry being insurance, now would it? It’s kinda like when Joe Biden, D-Visa, made sure the credit card companies, his state’s top industry, had plenty of time to screw the public before the weak regulations Congress passed took effect.

There’s a fourth thing about his comments on Hardball. He thinks the public option is being pushed by people who want government to take over all insurance. They have a right, he says, but he thinks it’s wrong.

Why’s that Joe Lieberman, I-The Hartford? Making health insurance affordable to all Americans, and not just the rich ones, would hurt your constituency, wouldn’t it? Insurance executives would no longer be the Wall Street fat cats of Connecticut.

Most of the Western world has government-run insurance, and it’s working just fine. Hasn’t bankrupted anybody. But here in America, where capitalism means ever sticking it to the American citizen at every opportunity, conservatives, including Joe Lieberman, run screaming that a public option would be the end of the world. And that’s not anywhere near government-run insurance for all. And by the way, it’s called universal health care. Look it up.

Bankers, insurance execs and credit card company CEOs are what’s worse than terrorism, Virginia Foxx. They’re aiming to destroy this country in the name of padding their own overseas bank accounts while our government tries to appease the conservatives who want to maintain the status quo.

I don’t even care that Joe’s usually been pro-choice in his votes, even with the House health care bill coming through with its Catholic bishop-mandated limitations on abortions. Do you really think Joe will stand up to his principles, if he has any, in that regard? The House’s pro-choice caucus sure as hell didn’t. Expect Joe to go the same way.

Seriously, I’ve had enough of Joe Lieberman running his mouth as if anybody gives a shit or he actually has something constructive to say. He’s a liar. Time for him to shut the fuck up.