A source close to Lieberman said on Wednesday that Clinton plans to announce his endorsement at a press conference in Hartford on Monday afternoon.

Over the past few weeks, Clinton has dropped hints that he’s backing Lieberman. For instance, at a recent Aspen Institute conference, the former president went out of his way to defend Lieberman’s stance on the war. Clinton called Lieberman his “friend” and said Democrats, by demonstrating their own divisions over the Iraq war, rather than on ousting Republicans, are pursuing the “nuttiest strategy I ever heard in my life.”

“In a case of a guy like Lieberman, you know, you think of all the other issues — he got endorsed in Connecticut by labor, by the environmental groups, by the gay groups, by all these other groups — we’ve got a world of differences between ourselves and the Republicans,” he said, responding to a question about how the Democratic Party is dealing with foreign policy. “So, I think the Democrats are making a mistake to go after each other.”

By contrast, Clinton’s wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), has hedged her support for her Senate colleague, saying she won’t back him if he loses the primary.

The Clintons have, at times, had their issues with Lieberman, given his outspoken criticism of the then-president during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Though the Connecticut Democrat ultimately voted against removing Clinton from office after the House impeached him, Lieberman used such words as “inappropriate,” “immoral” and “harmful” to describe the commander in chief’s actions.

On the other hand, Lieberman and Clinton go way back, and, in the end, their ties — Clinton, as a Yale Law School student, worked on Lieberman’s 1970 state Senate campaign — may trump any ill will over the world’s most famous intern scandal.

Well, Hello There. On his way to a Voting Rights Act meeting with Senate Democratic allies Wednesday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson ran smack-dab into an old adversary who couldn’t have been too happy to see the civil rights leader: Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.).

As readers may recall, Jackson was instrumental in nudging along Lott’s fall from grace four years ago, after the former Majority Leader’s infamously ill-fated birthday roast of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.).

Maybe time really does heal all wounds. Or maybe it’s just that politicians belong in showbiz. Jackson and Lott acted all chummy with each other, riding the elevator up to the second floor, and walking around the Senate chamber as the Senator offered directions to the office of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). (The room lineup has changed, after all, since Jackson’s days as D.C.’s Shadow Senator.)

The two were overheard trading talk about the ongoing cleanup of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf.

Lott said he and Jackson are now getting along famously.

“Yeah, we’re preaching together,” he joked with a smirk that suggested that the revival’s still a ways off.

Simmons: Dog’s Best Friend? What would former Philippines first lady Imelda Marcos say? Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Conn.) really could have used the shoe maven’s help Wednesday in the Homeland Security Committee as he gave an impassioned defense of the use of dog booties.

When the subject came up of a new Government Accountability Office report showing that Homeland Security bought $68,500 worth of never-worn dog booties, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) understandably expressed alarm. Simmons interjected that he objected “to the characterization of dog booties as a frivolous expense.”

He said DHS doggies are working hard to prevent further terrorism attacks. “Under certain conditions, the black top is very hot, so they use dog booties to protect their feet ... and under other conditions it can be wet and cold,” said Simmons, adding he hoped Markey would consider “the purchase of dog booties could, under certain circumstances, be a legitimate expense.”

No, Markey explained, he objected to the frivolous expense of “unused” dog booties. “I have no problem with them purchasing dog booties,” he clarified. “I don’t know, maybe you support the use of unused dog booties, but I don’t.”

So, Simmons shot back, “I would ask the gentleman if he goes to the shoe store, does he buy unused shoes, or does he buy used shoes?”

“When I buy shoes and booties,” Simmons said confidently, “I buy them unused and then hopefully, eventually use them.” (Everyone in the hearing room was — no pun intended — howling.)

Indeed, Simmons, according to his spokesman, John Goodwin, wears all of the roughly one-dozen pairs of shoes and boots that he owns. As for dog booties, he really buys those, too.

The Congressman has one golden lab and three dachshunds. The German pooches “have small feet that get irritated by rock salt in the winter so they have been fitted with booties that they wear on occasion,” Goodwin told us.

Uh-Huhhhhh. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) just had to go where we wouldn’t dare. He made fun of his last name in a “Beavis and Butthead” kind of way during Wednesday’s “Better Know the Republican Leadership” intern series held by Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.).

Boehner explained to the young ’uns that he thought he’d never get elected because people couldn’t pronounce his name. They thought of everything, he said, except the way it’s really pronounced, which is BAY-ner, including — yes, we hate to tell you — “Boner.”

Paul Kane and Dan Rasmussen contributed to this report.

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