So Joe Lieberman has “decided,” despite a 2006 campaign promise to “work to put a Democrat in the White House,” to endorse the man VDB calls “the New Bob Dole,” John McCain. Which is fine. Let the baby have his way, as we used to say during Nerf football games growing up, when it looked like we were doomed to lose the argument anyway.

Yes, Lieberman lied to his constituents, and they rewarded him with six more long warmongering years in the United States Senate. And there’s not a damn thing anyone in America can do about it.

VDB has shouldered tougher hits.

But there’s one thing we absolutely will not stand for in this instance: the media-enabled impression that this “decision” of Lieberman’s is somehow recent in origin, the product of an agonized, heartfelt quandry.

Lieberman’s flirtation with McCain and the GOP has been so open for so long that only someone entirely new to American electoral politics could buy the spin coming out of Lieberman’s office. But ABC News gives us the breathless tick-tock anyway:

A couple weeks ago, Sen. Joe Lieberman, the self-described “Independent Democrat” from Connecticut, received a phone call from a close friend and frequent traveling companion, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. McCain wanted to know if Lieberman would endorse his presidential bid.

Frequent traveling companion is putting it mildly, of course. But the tick-tock goes on:

“But Lieberman’s left-leaning views on domestic issues aside, after talking with his family and a couple of aides, he decided the journey to McCain-land was one he was willing to make.”

Being a man of family, values, and family values, Big Joe does nothing without securing assent from all family members. And yes, even though the journey to McCain-land will be tough and lonely and dangerous, perhaps even resulting in Big Joe selflessly offering to run on a McCain/Lieberman “unity” ticket, the family swallowed the lumps in their various throats, and agreed.

It’s like Father Knows Best meets High Plains Drifter. Who is this selfless maverick patriot Joe Lieberman? And where can we click to contribute to his attempt to rise above party lines and Defeat Islamofascism?!

The truth is that Joe Lieberman was booted from the Democratic Party in 2006, and it smarted. He has done his best to stick it to the Caucus ever since. And dreams of the White House, no matter how incredible, never die.

But a day of reckoning will come. His support will mean nothing with an increased Democratic Senate majority in 2008; at that point the threat of leaving the Caucus will be entirely, rather than just mostly, hollow.

Which is to say that Joe’s instincts are carrying him Rightward, as the country trends distinctly Leftward. A surge all his own, and one that will inevitably carry the man into the bounds of the Republican party proper within a year or two.

And that’s as it should be. Better we fight him over there, so we don’t have to fight him here, if you know what we mean.