WASHINGTON: Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman has gone from a critic of President Barack Obama to a convert, and says Obama is showing real leadership and that the president is “off to a very good start.”

That’s from Joe Lieberman, once well-known as a Democratic liberal, he changed his stripes when it looked like he was going to be sidelined as a Democrat in Connecticut.

Lieberman lost his state’s Democratic primary to wealthy businessman Ned Lamont, an anti-war candidate, but was re-elected in 2006 as an Independent.

But change didn’t stop there. Last year Lieberman campaigned for Republican John McCain for president and attacked Obama as naive, untested and unwilling to take on powerful special interests.

Regarding his decision to endorse Republican presidential candidate John McCain, one-time Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman told the Jerusalem Post:

“The rabbis say in the Talmud that a lot of rabbinic law is to put a fence around the Torah so you don’t get near to violating it, McCain has a series of very clear-headed policies toward terrorism and Islamic extremism [that put] extra layers behind his support of Israel.”

McCain had even considered making Lieberman, who nearly won the vice presidency on the Democratic ticket with Al Gore in 2000, his running mate.

So what might explain Lieberman’s turnaround? It probably has a lot to do with the White House’s help in him keeping his power in the Senate. Once elected, Obama told his party to go nice on Joe.

So, Senate Democrats decided not to punish Lieberman and voted to let him keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “President Obama played a very important role, he was very gracious,” said Lieberman, who has since called Obama to thank him. “That obviously sealed the deal and I appreciated it a lot.”

Liberal bloggers fumed. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent, called it a “slap in the face” for millions of Americans who backed Obama.

But Democrats need Lieberman’s support in a chamber where it takes 60 of the 100 senators to overcome the threat of a Republican filibuster. They feared punishing Lieberman could drive him to the GOP. Lieberman remains a registered Democrat and caucuses with Senate Democrats.

Lieberman has applauded Obama’s national security team and played a key role, even though it meant clashing with McCain on the economic stimulus bill on the Senate floor and a District of Columbia voting rights bill.

Lieberman, one should remember, faces re-election in 2012 in a state where Obama is very popular, so he’s is eager to mend fences with Democrats still fuming over his criticism of Obama during the general election campaign.

Lieberman scoffs at any suggestion his embrace of Obama is more about making things politically easier than principle. “I haven’t changed ... I’ve always had a voting record that is more with the Democrats than with the Republicans,” he said.

Many Democrats are still fuming over Lieberman’s needling of Obama during his Republican National Convention speech with the line “eloquence is no substitute for a record.”

Lieberman said he understands why he struck a nerve with Obama’s backers. “We were in the middle of a campaign and we just plain disagreed ... When I said those things not only did I believe them, but I believe looking at the records of the two people then, they were right,” Lieberman said.

“Do I think it is more principle or politics?” said Quinnipiac University Poll director Doug Schwartz of Lieberman’s moves. “It is a tough question.”

Lieberman’s campaigning for McCain hurt him with Connecticut voters, particularly Democrats, Schwartz said.

Connecticut’s Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who is mentioned as a possible 2012 Senate Democratic candidate, would beat Lieberman by 28 points in a hypothetical matchup, a recent Quinnipiac poll showed.

Lieberman’s active campaigning against the Democratic Party last year hasn’t won him too many friends back home. Lieberman’s job approval is also at only 45 percent, with 48 percent disapproving. Among Democrats that’s a 21 percent-70 percent rating, Republicans 75 percent-20 percent, while independents give him a narrow approval of 48 percent-46 percent.

A lot can happen in four years, but right now it doesn’t look like Lieberman has too many options. He can’t run as a Democrat, he would still lose as a Republican, and there’s no reason to believe that staying as an independent will provide him much more of an opportunity.