(This article originally appeared in The State, August 8, 2006)

Only a newspaper columnist could see Joe Lieberman’s selfish decision to seek election this November as an independent as the first blow in a courageous battle to break political gridlock.

Just as the U.S. Secretary of State somehow views the carnage in northern Israel and Lebanon as “the birth pangs of a New Middle East,” Brad Warthen and David Brooks see the repudiation of Lieberman by his party as the glorious dawning of a third way in American politics.

But tearing off his party label doesn’t so much make Lieberman a principled crusader determined to reinvent truth, justice and the American way, as it proves him to be that most familiar of Beltway creatures: a politician desperate to hang onto personal power.

If Lieberman wanted to overthrow the ruling order, he could have declared himself an independent at the get-go.  Instead, he made a calculated decision to collect petition signatures as insurance in case he lost the Democratic primary. 

This is hardly surprising since hedging his bets is nothing new to Lieberman.  He did, after all, simultaneously run for Vice President and what he clearly views as his Senate seat in 2000.

Lieberman has certainly seen firsthand that Connecticut voters are open to a true independent candidacy.  His ascent to the U.S. Senate came in 1988 against GOP incumbent Lowell Weicker.  Lieberman’s victory then was helped in no small part by Republican dissatisfaction with Weicker for not paying proper fealty to another George Bush.  Two years later, Weicker was elected governor of Connecticut as an independent, not bothering to first lose a party primary in the process.

Brad – along with Vice President Dick Cheney and Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Melhman – believes Lieberman’s defeat is proof positive that wild-eyed liberal bloggers and other bomb-throwers have taken over the Democratic Party.  Cheney, of course, went Brad one step further by somberly opining that Ned Lamont’s win gives solace to “al-Qaeda types."

The self-important Lieberman followed suit a day later, declaring ''I'm worried that too many people, both in politics and out, don't appreciate the seriousness of the threat to American security and the evil of the enemy that faces us -- more evil or as evil as Nazism and probably more dangerous than the Soviet communists we fought during the long Cold War.''

While the prospect of Osama hunkering down in his cave in Pakistan, poring over American election returns and exit polls, clearly sends shivers down the spines of Cheney and Lieberman, I can’t help but think there may be a bit of political calculation in their otherwise noble decisions to air such concerns.

Faced with the prospect of becoming a FOX News analyst – a pretty good gig, sure, but you don’t get your own elevator – Lieberman decided to go commando.  Should he defeat Ned Lamont in the rematch, which is a very real possibility, Lieberman might get to do something much more fun than ending the partisan wars – deciding them.

Democrats need to pick up seven seats in November to take outright control of the Senate. Pennsylvania, Montana and Vermont are all but locks for the Democrats, and their chances are better than even in Missouri, Ohio and Rhode Island.  Should they spring an upset in Tennessee, Arizona or Virginia, Democrats will be handed the keys to the kingdom – as long as newly minted independent Joe Lieberman sticks with them.

Since Karl Rove has already told Lieberman that “The Boss” has given him the greenlight to do anything he can to ensure Lieberman a win, it’s a given that The Company might want a little something in return from ol’ Joe when it’s time to pick the Senate leadership. A normal politician might conclude that since the funds to pay for his “independent” bid and the votes that made it successful came from Republicans, he might ought to just, you know, show a little love back.

So will an insufficiently Democratic Democrat who first got to the Senate by beating an insufficiently Republican Republican be expected to end the partisan wars? Call me a cynic, but I don’t think so.