Lieberman Absolves McCain

The US Senate's Resident Moralist has prayed over the alleged sins of John McCain and given him his blessing.

"Here’s a man," the Reverend Joe Lieberman sermonized outside a Connecticut diner this week, "who has devoted his whole life to service to his country. His honor matters a lot to him. His reputation matters a lot to him. And this is a story that basically pukes up 8-year-old rumors, uncorroborated."

In addition, Lieberman offered his personal testimony: "I've been with him on a lot of occasions, traveled all around the world, been at meetings with a lot of women there. And I've never seen him do anything that even approached inappropriate behavior."

Case closed.

Such absolution is impressive from the man who publicly scolded his own President for "sexual misconduct and his deliberate efforts to deceive the American people" in the Monica Lewinsky days.

Now, as an Independent supporting a Republican candidate for president, Lieberman has obviously mellowed. It's surely only coincidence that the text he denounced came from the New York Times, which in 2006 endorsed his opponent in the Connecticut primary, saying "Mr. Lieberman has fallen in love with his image as the nation’s moral compass" but "has become one of the Bush administration’s most useful allies as the president tries to turn the war on terror into an excuse for radical changes in how this country operates."

It's heartening to see Sen. Lieberman, as Barack Obama might say, reach across the aisle to give moral support to an old friend and after all, as the Times noted back then, "if pomposity were a disqualification, the Senate would never be able to call a quorum."