May 22 (Bloomberg) -- Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, says his disagreement with the Democrats over the Iraq war won't prevent him from working with his former party. For now. ``I hope the moment doesn't come that I feel so separated from the caucus'' that he decides to shift allegiance to the Republicans, he said in an interview. Asked what Democratic actions might cause such a break, he invoked Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous 1964 definition of pornography: ``I'll know it when I see it.''The 65-year-old lawmaker is the margin of difference in the Democrats' 51-49 control of the Senate. A switch to the Republicans, which he won't rule out, would create a 50-50 tie that would allow Vice President Dick Cheney to cast a deciding vote for Republican control. Lieberman has ``gone from being dispensable to essential for the Democrats,'' said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Lieberman said he already has seen much he doesn't like from the Democrats, particularly Majority Leader Harry Reid's decision to co-sponsor, and then allow a vote last week on, legislation cutting off war funding by March. Leiberman said Reid's recent remark that the war is lost undermined troop morale and left him ``terribly'' bothered. ``I just have a fundamental disagreement,'' he said.