Colin McEnroe fillets Connecticut’s pride, Holy Joe Lieberman:

If all of the above is worth noting about McCain, it is also worth noting about his Sundance Kid, Joe Lieberman. Lieberman attacked Obama in the ways attributed above to McCain and even did a few things McCain was not willing to do. Unlike McCain, he also wears the stain of doing these nasty things to a man whose help he sought and received during his own 2006 campaign.

Both men — Joe and John — have for years, been marketing the idea of a gracious centrism that rises above partisan politics. They have offered themselves to us as “a better kind of politician.” When you see how quickly each man descended into the vicious gutter politics, you see that whole bipartisan stance for the sham it really was -- just a different kind of face on the usual vanity and ambition. (In Lieberman’s case, one long-standing tip-off was the way he constantly sought out the company and airtime of guys like Imus, Hannity and Beck, not exactly fountains of tranquility, decorum and composure.)

Give me Lee Atwater and Karl Rove and James Carville any day. Give me some stout-hearted unapologetic infighters and elbow-throwers. At least they never pretend to be anything else. Far more insidious is Lieberman, with his coprophagic grin and his profession of good will. I never believed it, but a lot of people did.

The way you always knew that Joe Lieberman was the kind of guy who “rises above” partisan politics was that he always told you so.

The way you knew he wasn’t was to watch him the rest of the time.