When Harry Met Lieberman

In deciding how to punish Lieberman, Reid has several questions to consider: Does Lieberman's disloyalty require aggressive payback? What message does Reid want to send to his newly expanded Dem caucus? And perhaps most importantly, what impact would Reid's actions have on Dem control of the Senate?

-- Ultimately, will Reid be focused on the future or the past? Lieberman irked Dems by campaigning for McCain and Palin (most notably, delivering a GOP convo speech that attacked Pres.-elect Obama). But Obama has won that race, on a message of post-partisan magnanimity. Still basking in the glow of that victory, how would Dems explain such a sharp-elbowed act of retribution?

-- Then again, Reid does have Lieberman in a particularly tight corner. During their 11/6 meeting, Lieberman pushed hard to hold onto his Homeland Security gavel, suggesting he'd leave the caucus if he's demoted. But Lieberman surely knows that doing so could seal his fate in CT, which gave Obama 60 percent and booted New England's sole remaining House GOPer, Chris Shays, from office on 11/4.

-- In the end, Reid may spare Lieberman, if only because he considers him a "friend." Ironically, it was friendship, that Senate colleagiality, that Lieberman said left him no choice but to endorse McCain.