December 14, 2003
DIVORCE, WASHINGTON STYLE
When a Stab in the Back Is Business as Usual
By TODD S. PURDUM
ASHINGTON — Senator Joseph I. Lieberman learned that he had been passed over by Al Gore for a presidential endorsement in precisely the same way he learned that he had been picked as Mr. Gore's running mate in the first place: from The Associated Press. That lapse in manners - and the message it conveyed - set off cries of "Betrayal!" from Mr. Lieberman's angry backers last week.
But from Judas to Brutus and beyond, limited loyalty has been an occupational hazard of leadership, never more so than in the Darwinian world of electoral politics. In a business in which strong ego, expediency and self-interest are virtually hard-wired into the practitioners' DNA, disloyalty is not only nothing new, it is an occasional necessity.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/14/weekinreview/14purd.html?8hpib EDITED BY ADMIN FOR COPYRIGHT REASONS