And while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid endorsed Lamont, he also said that Lieberman would face no consequences in the Senate -- lost chairmanships, for example -- should he go independent.
But taking into account other senators' chairmanships -- Murray, for example, chairs the Budget Committee -- Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) might just be up next, someone pretty smart told me.
Mr Cable has taken on Lord Mandelson's chairmanship of the Automotive Council, for example, and is beginning to talk of prioritising hi-tech fields such as biosciences – the retention of the science budget in the spending review was seen as both a victory for the Business Secretary and a signal of intent.
"'My colleague is talking to so-and-so in Brussels'… You hear that regularly… 'Britain is the only country doing this and that.'" But if that were all true, he says, more people would know, for example, that Britain currently holds the chairmanship of the UN Security Council, a position of great potential influence.
A phone call to India's prime minister after the earthquake in the state of Gujarat in January, for example, led to the creation, and Mr. Clinton's chairmanship, of the American India Foundation, which has raised more than $7 million to rebuild villages devastated by the earthquake.
For example, researchers commonly note that Kazakhstan has largely portrayed its 2010 OSCE Chairmanship as the evidence of the country's being a reliable member of the international community.
Take, for example, the curious fact that the members of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights elected Libya to its chairmanship in 2003, despite its appalling record, because it was "Africa's turn".
I hope that one day a woman, for example, will make earth-shattering economic mistakes from a position as visible as the Federal chairmanship.
Think, for example, of what health care reform might have looked like if Majority Leader Harry Reid had told Joe Lieberman the requirements for keeping his committee chairmanship included voting for cloture when asked.
