A few days ago I was struck by this comment about Joe Lieberman and his despicable recent behavior:
Joe Lieberman is an odd political duck, to put it mildly. I understand that he seems to bear a grudge against the Democratic liberals who tried to unseat him in 2006 because of his vote for the war in Iraq, and that he might be engaged in a little pay back right now. Perhaps he's shilling for his home state insurance interests, as if no other senator would ever do such a thing.
Ezra Klein agrees and argues that Lieberman is driven at least partly by pique.
Games of this sort* are meant to make the opposition hesitate before that first move (the tat, I guess), because they know that the revenge is forthcoming (the tit, um). The intention is to make the opposition abstain from the tat move because of the high future cost. So just threatening to tit will kill the tat! Gosh, I sometimes write like an idiot.
I also sometimes think Clarence Thomas is doing something similar when it comes to Supreme Court cases about women's rights, as if he is revenging the Clarence Thomas hearings on all American women. If that were truly the case he'd be a very small man, of course.
Neither Lieberman nor Thomas are playing the sort of repeated game where the tit for tat strategy would work. If they are looking for revenge it's for some other type of reason. But observing these events may make others hesitant to attack politicians too strongly or to fight against them too hard. There might be game going, after all, even if it's in some meta sense.
Of course politicans or Supreme Court justices who act out of personal spite should be sent to the duck pits.
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*Tit-for-tat strategies in repeated games such as in a repeated prisoners' dilemma.