Joe Lieberman tries to Rove the convention

From the What Were They Thinking Department:

I've respected Joe Lieberman, off and on, for his willingness to be independent. I thought he would have made a decent VP to Al Gore's Presidency.

But now he's rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, all the while assuring us that the Republican ship of state is unsinkable.

In October of 2006, Lieberman decided to call himself an "Independent Democrat". Not just as some sort of media-branding tool, but officially, for the record. That was a bit of a head-scratcher, but tactically understandable in that he'd lost the Democratic ticket bid for his seat.

When asked "Would you unequivocally caucus with the Democrats?" Joe said: "Oh, come on. I’ve said that 1200 times.... Yes. Yes!"

In December, 2007, Lieberman announced he'd be backing McCain for president. Now there's a declaration. It calls up images of Lieberman perched on the bow of the Titanic, screaming "Look at me! I'm independent! King of the world!"... showing that it's possible to take the independent thing to an illogical extreme.

And yet, asked in July of 2008 if he would start voting with the Republicans to hand them the majority, he said "I don't have any intention of doing that before the end of this session of Congress." Really, Joe? This isn't independence. This is navigating without a map, a compass, GPS, landmarks, stars...

Now, at the Republican National Convention, Lieberman says "In the Senate, [Obama] has not reached across party lines to get anything significant done, nor has he been willing to take on powerful interest groups in the Democratic Party."

Wow. As if throwing support behind Mr. 90%-With-Bush weren't bad enough, now Joe's decided to start telling obvious lies? What sort of efforts would Joe call "significant"? As Obama advisor Robert Gibbs said, the senator worked with Sen. Richard Lugar to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists and with Sen. Tom Coburn on the budget. Just for a couple of examples. And the last time I checked, those guys were Republicans.

If forging a solid budget and preventing terrorists from getting nukes aren't "significant" enough for you, Joe, what is? Perhaps you would like Sen. Obama to build consensus with the Republicans on Unified Field Theory? Or maybe form a bi-lateral committee to definitively establish or disprove the existence of God?

It's as if Carl "Repeat a Lie Enough Times" Rove himself had written Lieberman's speech.

More evidence that if John McCain is elected president, America will be subjected to at least four more years of flat-out lies.

And, it's apparently evidence that Joe Lieberman has lost not only his spine, but his mind. I would say "Say it ain't so, Joe"... but I doubt he could respond coherently.