As a tactic, appending a controversial piece of legislation to a larger appropriations bill is a sneaky, but classic, method of forcing Congressmen to prioritize. Yet any doubts about how appropriate it is to do so should be alleviated in the ANWR case — drilling in Alaska is directly related to our activities in the middle east. So don’t mind Sen. Lieberman’s speech castigating the Republicans for disrespecting the “rules” of the Senate — he’s disrespecting his own hawkish record, and showing us the same stuff that made him a viable vice-presidential candidate for Gore.