Obama's Chicago style diplomacy? Corners Lieberman after critique

Jake Tapper sets the imagination a'whirling. His Political Punch entry today, "Obama Confronts Lieberman On McCain Advocacy, Tone, on Senate Floor", conjures visions reminiscent of 1900s Chicago mob bosses and their intimidation "diplomacy".

To set the stage, Lieberman had just finished a critique on the Senate floor of BHO's AIPAC speech on Wednesday - the day following his self-coronation - when Obama ushered him off to the side for some private "words".

Returning to the Senate after his securing the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama and Lieberman greeted each on the Senate floor in the Well as they were voting on the budget resolution.

They shook hands. But Obama didn’t let go, leading Lieberman - cordially - by the hand across the room into a corner on the Democratic side, where Democratic sources tell ABC News he delivered some tough words for the junior senator from Connecticut, who had just minutes before hammered Obama's speech before the pro-Israel group AIPAC in a conference call arranged by the McCain campaign.

Watch video of the encounter on the Senate floor HERE.

The two spoke intensely for approximately five minutes, with no one able to hear their conversation. Reporters watched as Obama leaned closely in to Lieberman, whose back was literally up against the wall.

Neither party is officially talking. But while Lieberman spokesman Marshall Whitman says the conversation was "a cordial and friendly discussion" and Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton says it was "private and friendly," Democratic sources tell ABC News that the conversation was a stern rebuke to Lieberman for his criticism of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee on the conference call, as well as a discussion about how far Lieberman is willing to go in his advocacy of McCain, and the tone of the campaign.

The video link provided is a long shot, and captures only the part of Obama's firm clasp on Lieberman amidst the crowd, until they exit out of frame to the right. The rest is presumably constructed from witnesses. Tapper's accounting does rightfully deserve this caveat... the full encounter, nor the video, is not available on tape. So on can only guess what was said, and in what manner. I'll wager "body language" interpretators are going to have a ball with this one....

However this bizarre event, an obviously more virulent and younger Senator physically pulling the older and smaller Lieberman out of the crowd, and instead to a private wall, begs the most simple of observations. You can take the boy out of Chicago. But can you take the Chicago out of the boy?