A decade ago, Joe Lieberman was a source of great pride for American Jews. Now Jews (who voted 78 percent for Barack Obama) are debating a critical question: why is Joe such a putz? Tough crowd. "Putz" is a Yiddish word for the male anatomy. Al D'Amato lost his Senate seat to Chuck Schumer in 1998 after he called him one. But Lieberman is wrong if he thinks it's only hard-core lefties who are mad at him. Everyone is tired of how the junior senator from Connecticut is giving acts of conscience a bad name. (Click here to follow Jonathan Alter)

The latest trouble started after Lieberman said on Fox that "as a matter of conscience," he would filibuster any health-care bill with a public option. Flashback: when he ran for reelection in 2006, Lieberman bragged about his MediChoice plan. It would "allow anybody in our country to buy into a national health-insurance pool like the federal-insurance pool we federal employees and members of Congress have." That sounds suspiciously like—ahem—the public option. What's changed? (Article continued below...)

Lieberman says it's the deficit. He now opposes any kind of public option because of cost. But the Congressional Budget Office reports the opposite—that a government-run option would save money by providing competition. Maybe the CBO is wrong. Maybe it won't save money. Who knows? So let's stipulate that we have no clue about how much any of this will cost, long term.

That sounds familiar. In Afghanistan we have no idea how much a "government takeover" will cost. Does that keep Lieberman from being gung-ho about escalation? No. Like other neocons, he thinks the deeper principle at stake trumps short-term cost calculations that are probably wrong anyway. But when it comes to health care, restraining hypothetical spending is suddenly a matter of conscience. Spare me. For Lieberman the only principle at stake is his stake in looking principled.

To conservatives. Lieberman doesn't care how liberals view him. He's given up on them after all the mean things they've said. Some of his oldest supporters voted for Ned Lamont in Connecticut's 2006 Democratic primary! Unforgivable! He's technically an independent and still votes for some liberal things because he wants to get reelected in 2012. But Joe's heart is with the right.