TNR endorses Lieberman

Sealing their move to the middle (somewhere to the right of the DLC, but the Left of the Republican mainstream), The New Republic has endorsed Joe Lieberman out of principle.

However, in keeping with their well-earned reputation for fairness, they provide dissenting editors opinions, including "The Case for Wesley Clark: Credibile Threat"

But all the talk about how Clark's biography makes him electable has overwhelmed the more important point: It would also make him a good president. In the last decade, the specter of genocide arose twice in the Balkans; both times, Clark was instrumental in beating it back despite tepid support among political and military elites. In Bosnia, in 1995, Clark fought to continue bombing Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic's forces--a move that forced their withdrawal from Sarajevo and enabled the Dayton peace process, which yielded a successful peacekeeping and reconstruction operation. And, in 1999, with the world sitting idly by as thousands of ethnic Albanians were slaughtered in Kosovo, Clark--by then nato's supreme allied commander of Europe--repeatedly bucked his Pentagon superiors and pushed for intervention. He then proceeded to hold together the fractious nato alliance through a 78-day air war that succeeded in stopping the atrocities and ultimately resulted in Milosevic standing trial for war crimes.

More than just an asset for Clark's political campaign, this diplomatic and military experience provides the brains and the brawn behind a worldview that prioritizes threats to U.S. security without sacrificing humanitarian imperatives, that seeks to solve problems through negotiation but is bolstered with a proven willingness to use force. Unlike Democratic rivals who try to demonstrate their foreign policy bona fides by showcasing their Senate votes, the retired general has actually waged the "muscular multilateralism" that his opponents use as a catchphrase. For this reason, Clark is the best solution for a Democratic Party struggling to prove it can protect the United States from terrorists and weapons of mass destruction--not only because Americans will sleep better with a general, rather than a politician, in the Oval Office, but because they'll sleep safer.

And to address the nuance-impaired in the comments that claim Clark would bow to foreign pressure against military intervention, the article has this to offer:

Clark's multilateralism is pragmatic, not fetishistic. His foreign policy puts self-interest first while allowing for humanitarian interventions, emphasizes diplomacy and international institutions while reserving the right for unilateral action, and endorses the value of nonproliferation treaties while acknowledging their weaknesses. His take on the use of force is pitch-perfect: "We always have the right of self-defense, including inherently the right to strike pre-emptively," he writes. "But force must be used only as a last resort--and then multilaterally if possible." In these respects, Clark again stands out not so much for the uniqueness of his philosophy as for the fact that he has actually put it to use. While many of the Democratic presidential candidates might agree with the tenor of Clark's broad policy guidelines, it's not clear that they would be willing to back up the soft side of U.S. power with its harder edge. With Clark, on the other hand, there is little doubt. It was Clark, after all, who during the Bosnian war demanded--to the point of hectoring a furious superior officer--that bombing continue until Milosevic withdrew from Sarajevo. And it was Clark, together with a handful of Clinton officials, who pushed for military intervention in Kosovo when the Pentagon brass and many nato leaders preferred to do nothing. Clark, unlike his rivals, has actually led wars, not just voted for them.

Read the whole thing. It's the best summation of why Clark must be President I've yet read.