With former vice-presidential candidate Joe Lieberman launching his independent campaign, the impact of the war on US politics and the Democrats is now clear. The vote was clearly a shot across the bow of the Democrats.

But it is also time to remember Lieberman's other big legacy: he was the one who helped pave the way for the big accounting scandals and shenanigans that culminated in Enron, WorldCom and Global Crossing.

Dean Baker from The American Prospect reminds us of the Lieberman legacy in his piece The Joe Lieberman Nobody Knows.

Lieberman led the fight against the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) proposal for companies to count stock options as an expense on their financial statements. Lieberman, a recipient of large campaign donations from the FASB's opponents, introduced a bill in 1993 pressuring the board to back down. By 1994, there were direct threats to the FASB's existence. Even the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Arthur Levitt, was pressured by lobbyists and lawmakers until he dropped away. Levitt later described it as his greatest single regret in the job.

As William Greider told us back in 2002, in his seminal piece The Enron Democrats , Lieberman has a lot of explaining to do.

"Senator Joe Lieberman, as chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, presides over hearings into what-went-wrong (with Enron) with the air of sorrowful piety that is his specialty. "Gatekeepers weren't keeping the gate, watchdogs weren't watching," he lamented. He neglects to mention that he is one of the faulty watchdogs and also a leading gatekeeper who blocked the timely reform of corporate finance. The Senator has a hypocrisy problem. He frequently sermonizes on the moral failings of others, including other public figures. Meanwhile, he has shilled vigorously, sometimes venomously, for the very players who are new icons of corruption--major auditing firms, corporate executives who cashed stock options early while investors took a bath and, especially, those self-inflating high-tech companies in Silicon Valley that drove the stock-market bubble. As a New Democrat, Lieberman held the door for their escapades."