Surprising, and yet not surprising at all. He finally gets his revenge on the left, something he’s been flirting with publicly since January and which now comes not so much as an early Christmas gift to the nutroots than as a flaming bag of dog crap left on their collective porch. They won’t miss him: No Democrat wants the endorsement of the party’s last true hawk, least of all the suspiciously hawkish Hillary, which is why Bill Clinton will forgive him for not backing her despite BJ having gone to bat for him against Ned Lamont. No surprise that Liebs would go with McCain, either, as not only have the two of them been putting out jointly authored op-eds on Iraq for the past few months but periodic statements like this make the aforementioned flaming bag burn that much more brightly.

Does this do Maverick any good, though? New Hampshire famously loves its independents and there’s no one more independent right now than Liebs, but this leaves McCain open to attacks from Romney to the effect that only a true RINO would actually be endorsed by the other party. Maybe he gets a small boost from it on balance — unless he does something dramatic at tomorrow’s presser along the lines of what Glenn suggests. Imagine: Liebs endorses McCain, whereupon McCain steps to the mike and endorses Liebs for vice president if he’s nominated. That’d create the kind of buzz McCain desperately needs to close on Mitt and would also steal some of the mystique that’s been surrounding Bloomberg as a potential above the fray, nonpartisan alternative. He should do it. He’s got nothing to lose.

Update: Another buzzworthy proposal.