Venomous? That's unfair to snakes

In a curious intra-paper spat, Charles Lane calls the Whambulence for poor ol' Joe, whom Ezra Klein had earlier accused of killing thousands with his "principled" stand against any compromise on a health care bill. Lane doesn't dispute any of Klein's accusations, nor the study that ties lack of insurance to the deaths of thousand. As an argument against Klein's point, I'd say "Fail." To wit:

Joe Lieberman is an odd political duck, to put it mildly. I understand that he seems to bear a grudge against the Democratic liberals who tried to unseat him in 2006 because of his vote for the war in Iraq, and that he might be engaged in a little pay back right now. Perhaps he's shilling for his home state insurance interests, as if no other senator would ever do such a thing.

But his position on the Medicare buy-in is hardly beyond the pale. That's more than you can say for Ezra Klein's venomous post.

Actually, I come to the opposite conclusions. As evidence, I give you Joe Lieberman three months ago.

I wondered when Lieberman initially supported the compromise that included the Medicare buy-in provision. Lieberman had previously stated that he opposed the public option because...well, for a myriad of reasons...but in particular because it would "hurt providers." To many providers, Medicare buy-in is even more onorous than a public option (which would do little, if anything, to hurt providers and was, in fact supported by a majority of them).

But Lieberman was okay with it, before he realized late last week that liberals in the party were themselves actually okay with the compromise. Truth is, I'm pretty certain Lieberman doesn't even think through the provisions he opposes because his opposition is sensitively calculated only to the feelings of whom he perceives as his political opponents.