Joe Lieberman joins McCain campaign

No, I mean he literally joined his campaign. From the Boston Globe:

Sen. Joe Lieberman has been named a chairman of Republican presidential hopeful John McCain's state leadership team.

Lieberman, an Independent who caucuses with Senate Democrats, has endorsed the Arizona senator and campaigned for him in Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

He is heading McCain's Connecticut campaign with Republican Rep. Christopher Shays.

George Jepsen, former state Democratic Party chairman who supported Ned Lamont's successful challenge of Lieberman in the 2006 Democratic primary, said Lieberman's endorsement of McCain is an affront to Democrats who believed Lieberman when he said two years ago that he was committed to helping put a Democrat in the White House in 2008.

Arguing that he would help put a Democrat in the White House was actually used as a primary excuse to justify supporting Lieberman for many Democrats, both voters and elected officials. Once the primary in 2006 was over, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton supported Ned Lamont in the general, which makes one wonder if there's something personal in Lieberman's decision to stab his party in the back.

Of course, we've been heading in this direction for a couple of years now, so we're not exactly in "nobody could have predicted..." territory. Lieberman also co-wrote the war with Iran bill (ya know, "Kyl-Lieberman") that Clinton's been catching so much hell over, he's gone over to the dark side on torture, and most tellingly, endorsed Republican Susan Collins in her upcoming re-election battle in Maine, a prime pickup opportunity for his now former party, and has even raised money for her (partly because she supported his re-election over Ned Lamont and Alan Schlessinger).

I would like to point out, in the interest of gloating accountability, one of my scribblings from 6 months ago:

The transformation of Joe Lieberman from (D-CT) to (R-Military Industrial Complex) is fully underway, and far more advanced than most are willing to acknowledge. He's no longer any more Democrat than Republican, and he's fully admitting to that. It's not a campaign slogan, people.
...
But make no mistake, people: by the time Campaign '08 gets into full swing, Lieberman will be working for the bad guys.

I also predicted that Joe Lieberman will be the keynote speaker at the 2008 Republican National Convention. That may well happen, but it's becoming increasingly likely, if McCain wins, anyway, that he may be making that speech as the VP candidate on the GOP ticket.