Joe Lieberman is a despicable human being.

I can forgive Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, who once upon a time was a Democrat (ha!), for his strong support of the Iraq War; lots of people supported it. Similarly, his vehement opposition to providing a public option for those who can’t afford private, for-profit health insurance may have been infuriating, but it was a legitimate position to take. As a Senator, it's his prerogative to publicly oppose, and vote against, any proposal with which he disagrees.

But today’s move – suggesting that terrorism suspects who are American citizens be stripped of their citizenship so that they can be denied their constitutional rights – is one of the most disgusting and appalling suggestions I have ever heard from a politician. I’m sorry Joe Lieberman wet his pants with fear when he heard that Faisal Shahzad, the wannabe Times Square bomber, was read his Miranda rights. I’m sure the guy’s never seen an episode of Law and Order and therefore has no idea that he has a right to remain silent and to have counsel present at his questioning, and that by informing him of these rights, the intelligence community lost access to vital information about, you know, the next idiot who's going to try and blow up a car filled with nonexplosive fertilizer from Home Depot.

If we’re going to go down this road, why don’t we just suggest that anyone accused of a crime who might have pertinent knowledge about other criminals be automatically stripped of his or her citizenship, so that he or she can be flogged, waterboarded, or held indefinitely at a Naval base in Cuba, until giving us the information that we need? Gang members, drug kingpins, Mafia lords – just think of all the noncitizens we could create!

Of course, if we strip them of their citizenship and they somehow manage to stay here, aren’t we just adding to the illegal immigration problem?

(P.S. I didn't even get into the fact that Lieberman's suggestion blatantly disregards the Supreme Court ruling, handed down over forty years ago, that the government cannot involuntarily strip an American of his or her citizenship. Court rulings are just one of the many constitutional protections built into our system of government that become irrelevant to Joe Lieberman when one pathetic failed terrorist gets read his Miranda rights.)