I almost expect a pink slip to arrive in my inbox any day from Howard Dean and his allies in the liberal blogosphere, thanking me for my many years of service to the Democratic Party.

The note might say: "The party is moving in a new direction, and we simply don't have a place for you. You can pick up your Joe Lieberman for President bumper sticker on your way out the door."

Like the much vilified Lieberman, I am pro-choice and angered at President Bush's efforts to stop stem-cell research. I have absolutely no problem with civil unions and think Bush has badly managed the war.

But I get a strange sense that the emerging powers that be in the Democratic Party are not so into me anymore.

My sin? I voted for - no, much worse, I worked for - Joe Lieberman.

Dean's old campaign organization, now called Democracy for America, led by Dean's brother, Jim, along with virtually every liberal blog, is calling for Lieberman to be purged from the Democratic Party over his support of the Iraq war. They are desperately trying to knock him off in next month's Senate primary in Connecticut.

Admittedly, Joe's rhetoric reminds me a little of the structural engineer of the Titanic arguing that the design was sound even as the ship sank into the abyss.

But Lieberman's position on the war is not so out of the mainstream. Like many Americans, I realize that the war was a colossal mistake but also fear the long-term consequences of leaving behind a failed state in the heart of the Middle East. Does that make me a Bush sympathizer? Hardly.

I understand that Lieberman is given no quarter from the left because he represents a staunchly blue state. And if Connecticut Democrats want him gone, so be it. But Dean and his allies are taking it a step further. Under the banner of a Lieberman loss, they are trying to flex some political muscle with potential Democratic presidential candidates and force them to adhere to their platform or else be crushed.

That means you, Hillary.

This is a very bad strategy if we want to win Ohio in 2008.

Lieberman received 19,000 votes in the 2004 New Hampshire presidential primary. That was slightly more than one-third of Dean's haul. Not much Joe-mentum in those numbers. But remember, 11 months later John Kerry won the general election in New Hampshire by a mere 9,000 votes.

And believe me, if you voted for Lieberman in the primary, you must have really liked him because our campaign was deader than disco by the last week.

So how many Lieberman voters can the party afford to discard? Not many.

Like it or not, the Deaniacs need Lieberman. Actually, they need what Lieberman represents. Al Gore did not select Lieberman because of his good looks in 2000. He picked him because he brought the moderate sensibility and moral leadership that many in this nation want. Gore thought that would help pull voters to the Democratic ticket. And it did.

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