Why do neoconservative extremists love Joe Lieberman?

from Glenn Greenwald's Unclaimed Territory

When it comes to the most significant political issues our country faces, there are few ideologues more extreme than Bill Kristol. Kristol is the personification of neoconservatism, having done more to agitate for an American invasion of Iraq, and for increased American involvement in wider Middle Eastern wars, than virtually anyone else. His Rupert Murdoch-funded Weekly Standard has become the warmongers' bible, as it routinely defends everything from a monarchical presidency (literally) to endless war.

Here is what Kristol says about Joe Lieberman in his new column, disgustingly entitled "Anti-war, Anti-Israel, Anti-Joe":

So even with a centrist Israeli government that is responding to a direct attack and not defending settlements in the territories, Democrats have adopted a "European" attitude toward Israel. And toward the United States. That is the meaning of Connecticut Democrats' likely repudiation of Joe Lieberman. What drives so many Democrats crazy about Lieberman is not simply his support for the Iraq war. It's that he's unashamedly pro-American.

That's almost too incoherent, too rhetorically desperate, even to object to -- Kristol actually devotes his whole column prior to that paragraph to the claim that Democrats have insufficient allegiance not to America, but to another country: Israel. Only after depicting Democrats as anti-Israel does he lurch abruptly and with no explanation into the absurd and tiresome smear that opposition to Lieberman is actually driven by opposition to Lieberman's being too "pro-American," whatever that might mean.

But the most noteworthy aspect of Kristol's column is what comes next, when Kristol plans Lieberman's post-Senate career:

There is a political opportunity for the Bush administration if the Democrats reject Lieberman. If he's then unable to win as an independent in November, he would make a fine secretary of defense for the remainder of the Bush years. . . . Is it too fanciful to speculate about a 2008 GOP ticket of McCain-Lieberman, or Giuliani Lieberman, or Romney-Lieberman, or Allen-Lieberman, or Gingrich-Lieberman? Perhaps. But a reinvigorated governing and war-fighting Republican party is surely an achievable goal. And a necessary one.

So, one of the most extreme neoconservative ideologues in the country not only supports Lieberman's candidacy, but appears to have Lieberman as his first choice for Defense Secretary -- the holy grail for war-loving neoconservatives -- and even for Vice President (alongside the likes of Newt Gingrich, George Allen or Mitt Romney).

(There's more, and some other interesting posts, here.)