(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
Judging from the 96 comments in this Washington Post story, Democrats were more than a little angered by Senator Lieberman’s speech last night. As Francis Urquart would say, Lieberman gave them something to cry about:
Senator Barack Obama is a gifted and eloquent young man who I think can do great things for our country in the years ahead.
But my friends, eloquence is no substitute for a record, not in these tough times for America.
In the — in the Senate, during the three-and-a-half years that Senator Obama’s been a member, he has not reached across party lines to accomplish anything significant, nor has he been willing to take on powerful interest groups in the Democratic Party to get something done. And I just ask you to contrast that with John McCain’s record of independence and bipartisanship.
But let me go one further — and this may make history here at this Republican Convention. Let me contrast Barack Obama’s record to the record of the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, who stood up to some of those same Democratic interest groups, worked with Republicans, and got some important things done like welfare reform, free trade agreements and a balanced budget.
So translating from politicalese: Obama is not ready to be President, Obama hasn’t accomplished much of anything, Obama isn’t tough enough to take on vested interests in his own party, Obama is no John McCain, nor a Bill Clinton.
There’s an old expression used in Texas politics that says you don’t scratch the king unless you are going to kill the king. In his own calm and dignified way, the Democrat’s 2000 Vice Presidential nominee went for the rhetorical kill last night.
Conventions have become stale, staged events, but you still get some drama here and there.
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
Just because it’s drama doesn’t mean it’s not staged. That’s what “drama” originally meant!
Ah, but not all dramas are staged, nor all staged dramas dramatic.
Joe Lieberman has been giving Democrats something to cry about for decades. In the mid 1990’s he was the only Democrat in the Senate to vote for a D.C. voucher plan. Beyond that he made an impassioned plea on the floor of the Senate for the program. It was most eloquent and I still have the excerpt from his floor speech as it was reported shortly after in the Wall St. Journal. On more than the Iraq war and Middle East issues he is a man of principle.
Correction: Patrick Moynihan of New York and John Breaux of Louisianna were Democrats who voted with Lieberman for the D.C. voucher bill.
Technically, Obama and Coburn were stuck sharing office space as remodeling was being done, so the legend goes, and Coburn reached out to Obama and convinced him about a federal transparency bill which Obama consponsored.