mcjoan makes an excellent point about Joe Lieberman's sudden fondness for the days of party bosses and machine politics:

What Lieberman is conveniently forgetting in this story is that for old-time party bosses, party discipline was job one. Chances are his hero Bailey, that anti-primary Democrat, would have pulled Lieberman from the ticket for his ongoing betrayal of the Democratic Party, his undying support for Bush and the Iraq War, and his trashing of Democrats who disagree with him.

Lieberman says he wishes to celebrate diversity of opinion, as do we all. But somehow Lieberman's idea of diversity of opinion relates only to him disagreeing with other Democrats in the Senate. That diversity of opinion, he seems to say, should be celebrated but not challenged.

Well, Joe, you can't have it both ways. You can't have a contest of ideas without the actual contest. And you can't dodge your accountability to the Democratic voters of Connecticut. You want to celebrate diversity of opinion within the party? There's no better way to do it than in a good old-fashioned primary race.

What she said.