Was the timing of Was the timing of Joe Lieberman's endorsement of McCain meant to influence the Republican primary, or perhaps just to throw it in the face of those suckered into believing that Lieberman was really just an "independent Democrat." It is one thing to say, as he had previously, "I may not support the Democratic nominee" if too liberal, quite another to say, with eight candidates still in the race, that you would not support ANY of them, including the relatively hawkish Clinton, the decidedly non-pacificist chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, and his own home-state colleague, whose career is intertwined with his own, and who endorsed him in 2004. By endorsing now, while Dodd and Biden are still in the race, he makes his renunciation of the entire party clear. Why not let him leave? Will Harry Reid be any less effective as minority leader than as majority leader? My theory has always been that McCain and Lieberman had been cooking up plans to run a third-party candidacy, on the premise that both had been rejected by the extremists of their own party. But I think the time for a party whose only platform is Endless War has come and gone. And Lieberman has made it quite clear that it is not merely the "extremists" in his party that he disagrees with, but everyone. --Mark Schmitt
