I’ll Take the Old Republic, Thank You Very Much

In a bold move sure to confuse the Bush campaign, The New Republic has endorsed five Democrats for president. Joe Lieberman gets the editors’ nod, however, and the cover. Here’s why:

[T]he fight against Saddam Hussein falls within a hawkish liberal tradition that stretches through the Balkan wars, the Gulf war, and, indeed, the cold war itself. Lieberman is not the only candidate who stands in that tradition–Wesley Clark promoted it courageously in Kosovo, as did Richard Gephardt when he defied the polls to vote for $87 billion to rebuild Iraq. But Lieberman is its most steadfast advocate, not only in the current field but in the entire Democratic Party. In 1991, he broke with every other Northern Democrat in the Senate to support the Gulf war, then broke with George H.W. Bush when the former president allowed Saddam to slaughter tens of thousands of Iraqi Shia in the war’s aftermath. In 1998, Lieberman joined with McCain to co-sponsor the Iraq Liberation Act, which committed the United States to regime change in Baghdad. And, in the 2000 campaign, when the younger Bush was still peddling neo-isolationism, it was Gore and Lieberman who insisted that the United States be prepared to use force to stop genocide and promote democracy.

I think this is fabulous. Lieberman’s shot at the nomination appears to be doomed. Let’s hope this sinking ship pulls the whole Peter Beinart school of liberal interventionism down with it.