One of the more entertaining sideshows of post-election DC is watching the man who Spencer Ackerman describes as “a sniveling, petty, entitled, morally overbearing and intellectually limited asshole” try to wriggle out of the bed he made for himself by endorsing John McCain and smearing Barack Obama. It’s pretty clear that his backstabbing is going to have some pretty serious consequences–but right now it’s up in the air how harsh those consequences will be.

Right now, Lieberman is the head of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the chief committee for Senate oversight of the executive branch. Political considerations aside, it’s worth nothing that he’s been doing what can charitably be called a shit job chairing that committee, and there’s little doubt that he should be removed from it. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, with characteristic timidity, offered to let him keep his seniority and another committee chairmanship.

Lieberman calls this “unacceptable.” And for once, we’re in agreement. Joe Lieberman isn’t fit to be chair of Dunder Mifflin’s Party Planning Committee, and Reid shouldn’t be giving him a light slap on the wrists. Steve Clemons, who isn’t exactly known for his partisan vindictiveness, thinks that Lieberman should be stripped of any security role in the Senate.

This isn’t just a matter of his betrayal of the Democratic Party–although if I were a Democratic strategist, that would be on my mind too. This is about limiting the influence of one of America’s most powerful unhinged neocons at a point where we’re trying to repair our standing in the world.