Steve Clemons on Schumer's support for an indy Lieberman

Steve Clemons of The Washington Note points out that Joe Lieberman has a perfect right to desert the party and run as an independent:

I feel the same way about Lieberman running as an Independent as I did about President Bush appointing John Bolton to the UN via a recess appointment. That's ok. Lieberman has the right to do that -- just as the President has the right to end run the Senate on appointments -- though they can only last through a single Congressional term.

But, he adds, Schumer is out of line when he refuses to endorse the winner of primary:

But what is irritating is that other Democrats like Chuck Schumer have the arrogance to act as if politics is a "top-down" arrangement and that those at the helm are really just a stacked deck of leadership annointed personalities.

Schumer hinted at the possibility that if Lamont succeeds in forcing Lieberman out as the carrier of Democratic aspirations in Connecticut, that the DSCC might support Lieberman as an independent.

This is outrageous. Schumer needs to be told in no uncertain terms that if he works to protect the inbred qualities of a Democratic leadership that has been inchoate and thus far unimpressive in its response to Bush-led Republicanism, then he has to go as well. Schumer is trying to stop change inside the Democratic Party, and that is what the party needs most.

Indeed.