Mean Joe?

The Pittsburgh Steelers once had an intimidating defender named “Mean Joe” Greene who struck fear into the heart of every NFL quarterback.

Today, if President Obama had the choice of starin’ down “Mean Joe” Greene or  Senator Joe Lieberman …he might just pick the former.

These past two days the Senator from Connecticut has been playing hard ball in Washington over HEALTH CARE.

Senator Joe isn’t a fan of parts of the Democrats’ health care plan that is nearing a vote in Congress.

This is getting Democrats pretty cranky. That is because Joe Lieberman’s vote may be THE deciding vote in the Health Care debate. As a result if Joe says No…it ain’t going to go….

So Joe is taking out his surgeon’s scalpel and demanding some amputation to the Democrats’ bill.

But don’t take it from us, we’ve got the rundown of the experts on the subject:

First up comes the NYTimes:

Mr. Lieberman’s main demands: that they scrap a plan to let people buy into Medicare beginning at age 55, and scotch even a fallback version of a new government-run health-insurance plan, or public option.

The Daily Beast has an exclusive on how the Connecticut Senator went from the limited edition “Gore-Lieberman” Joe, to the man we know today:

Talking Points Memo picks up what another “Joe”-VP Joe Biden- is saying:

“I think Joe’s judgment is wrong on this,” Biden said…”I’m confident Joe is going to see the light” and vote for the final bill.”

Now let’s head to the Left. Huffington Post contributer John Neffinger explains “Why We Lost Healthcare,” mentioning Joe:

And in the end, conservative Democratic Senators (as well as Senator Lieberman) did not support the public option exactly because progressives had so noisily supported it.

And to the Right now y’all. Redstate’s Erick Erickson says that after the dust settled one man remained- Joe:

The Democrats have given Joe Lieberman everything he wanted. Joe will now vote for the bill.

But back to TPM. Christina Bellantoni says Dems have to be careful because Lieberman is a major player on many other issues as well:

As Democrats grow increasingly infuriated with Lieberman (I-CT) as he throws a wrench into the health care bill, the White House and Senate leadership can’t afford to kick sand in his face.

So what do YOU think… is Joe “mean”, “lean”  or acting “extreme”?