At long last, we will soon be seeing the last of Joe Lieberman—at least in his role as U.S. senator from Connecticut.

The shape-shifting, self-loving politician has announced that he will not run for reelection in 2012.

As the Times—which Lieberman recently suggested should be “investigated” for reporting on Wikileaks’ leaks, reports,

Referring to Mr. Lieberman’s plan to forgo re-election, Bill Curry, a prominent Democrat who served with Mr. Lieberman in the State Senate, said, “It’s the first thing he’s done in 10 years to make Connecticut Democrats completely happy.”

Not that making Democrats completely happy is essential, but Lieberman has, in that time span, been so unreliable yet so sanctimonious, he’s evaporated the good will that the people of Connecticut (my home state) once had for him.

His support among Democratic voters, already eroded because of his outspoken advocacy for the war in Iraq, plummeted after he backed Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, for president against Mr. Obama. A year later, he threatened to join Republicans in blocking Mr. Obama’s health care plan, though he ultimately supported the bill.

You can be sure that the predictable pundits will now say that Lieberman was a great bipartisan figure, a sage stalwart of the Senate, rather than a man who ran vicious political campaigns and crossed party lines when he sensed it was in his self-interest, sanctimoniously criticized one Democratic president (Bill Clinton) and refused to support the next while he was campaigning.

Oh, wait…

David Gergen, a counselor to several presidents who has known Mr. Lieberman since their Yale days, said he was one of a “breed that is becoming increasingly extinct, and we are poorer for it.”

No. Not really.

Lieberman had his moments—his recent role in repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” comes to mind—but for too long his capricious and sanctimonious style and rapacious ego have dominated his work. As is the case with his friend, John McCain—whom Lieberman campaigned for over Barack Obama in 2008—Joe Lieberman is a classic example of a guy who got elected one time too many. This last term in the Senate should never have happened. It’s time to go, Joe.