From Gail Collins's column:
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The theories about Why Joe Is Doing It abound. We cannot get enough of them! I have decided to start a rumor that it all goes back to the 2004 presidential race, when Lieberman not only failed to win any primaries, but was also bitten by either a rabid muskrat or a vampire disguised as a moose.
Other than that, my favorite explanation comes from Jonathan Chait of The New Republic, who theorized that Lieberman was able to go from Guy Who Wants to Expand Medicare to Guy Who Would Rather Kill Health Care Than Expand Medicare because he “isn’t actually all that smart.”
It’s certainly easier to leap from one position to its total opposite if you never understood your original stance in the first place, and I am thinking Chait’s theory could get some traction. “When I sat next to him in the State Senate, he always surprised me by how little he’d learned about the bill at the time of the vote,” said Bill Curry, a former Connecticut comptroller and Democratic gubernatorial nominee.
I really like the not-that-bright theory, in part because it’s as good an explanation as any, and in part because it will definitely drive Lieberman nuts.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/opinion/17collins.html?ref=opinionI think the meme that Joe doesn't know what he is talking about and isn't smart enough to understand it would get his goat.