1. Boring but honorable.

2. Was filled with what we used to call “goo-goo” (which stood, somehow, for “good government”). (Bob Novak’ll still throw it out there, every now and then.)

3. Lieberman called Obama “a gifted and eloquent young man” — cruel, cruel. Excellent.

4. In my Thompson notes, I referred to a section of a little speech I have on this year’s presidential campaign: in which I say that Obama is strangely McGovernite, for a Democrat so young. I contrast him with Bill Clinton, who, in 1992, at least had some interesting departures from Democratic orthodoxy.

Joe Lieberman went and did the same thing. And it is much more credible, of course, coming from his mouth than from mine.

5. He did not have to endorse and praise Palin — he went out of his way. That was way, way above and beyond. He was supposed to come praise John McCain, tout court. Interesting.

6. I wish he had said something about how magnificent it will be to have a black president — someone else. “I have fought for civil rights my entire life, and no one is more eager to see an African American rise to the presidency than I am. But . . .,” etc., etc. (Would have been true, forget effective.)

7. I thought this was going to be pretty much a foreign-policy speech — about Iraq, the greater War on Terror, Iran, North Korea, etc. Isn’t that why Lieberman is snubbing the Democratic ticket and endorsing McCain? But it was mainly a goo-goo speech: about shaking up Washington, curtailing corruption, reaching across the aisle, etc. Interesting.

8. Late last night, a friend of mine suggested that Lieberman might have said something like the following: “I’m not just a Democrat, but a liberal Democrat. I disagree with John McCain on economic policy, and I disagree with him on social policy. But the world is now involved in a terrible struggle — what John Kennedy once called a ‘twilight struggle.’ The future of our country and, indeed, our civilization is too important to go with the present leadership of my party. We have forgotten how to stand up to evil.

“That’s why — despite our many differences — I’m going with John McCain.”

Anyway . . .

9. I have been very critical of Lieberman in the past, and will be in the future, I suppose. But it took guts to speak at this Republican convention — in the way he did — and I salute him. (Not that he needs salutes from the likes of me!)