When a Democratic politician argues that we should leave Iraq, it gets front page treatment. After Democratic Representative John (”Jack”) Murtha recently called for an immediate pullout in Iraq, it was the top news item for several news cycles. But in order to spin Murtha’s position as a major defection from the ranks of the war supporters, the media had to overlook his comment in the spring of 2004 calling the war “unwinnable.” If we can assume he didn’t support the war when he made that statement—politicians usually don’t go on record supporting unwinnable wars—then Murtha’s call for a pullout is a stunning example of non-news dominating the headlines for days.

An old adage about media coverage stipulates, “When dog bites man, it’s not news. When man bites dog, that’s news.” But Democrats maligning the war effort has been dog-bites-man non-news for a couple of years now. Yet whenever it happens, it seems to get top billing in each news cycle.

Now, if you really want news of the dog-bites-man variety, there is at least one Democratic politician of national stature who can still articulate a compelling reason for finishing the job in Iraq. You may remember him; in 2000, he was the Democrats’ nominee for Vice President. That’s right, Joe Lieberman (emphasis mine):

I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood—unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn.

Progress is visible and practical. In the Kurdish North, there is continuing security and growing prosperity. The primarily Shiite South remains largely free of terrorism, receives much more electric power and other public services than it did under Saddam, and is experiencing greater economic activity. The Sunni triangle, geographically defined by Baghdad to the east, Tikrit to the north and Ramadi to the west, is where most of the terrorist enemy attacks occur. And yet here, too, there is progress.

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It is a war between 27 million and 10,000; 27 million Iraqis who want to live lives of freedom, opportunity and prosperity and roughly 10,000 terrorists who are either Saddam revanchists, Iraqi Islamic extremists or al Qaeda foreign fighters who know their wretched causes will be set back if Iraq becomes free and modern. The terrorists are intent on stopping this by instigating a civil war to produce the chaos that will allow Iraq to replace Afghanistan as the base for their fanatical war-making. We are fighting on the side of the 27 million because the outcome of this war is critically important to the security and freedom of America. If the terrorists win, they will be emboldened to strike us directly again and to further undermine the growing stability and progress in the Middle East, which has long been a major American national and economic security priority.

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In the face of terrorist threats and escalating violence, eight million Iraqis voted for their interim national government in January, almost 10 million participated in the referendum on their new constitution in October, and even more than that are expected to vote in the elections for a full-term government on Dec. 15. Every time the 27 million Iraqis have been given the chance since Saddam was overthrown, they have voted for self-government and hope over the violence and hatred the 10,000 terrorists offer them. Most encouraging has been the behavior of the Sunni community, which, when disappointed by the proposed constitution, registered to vote and went to the polls instead of taking up arms and going to the streets. Last week, I was thrilled to see a vigorous political campaign, and a large number of independent television stations and newspapers covering it.

None of these remarkable changes would have happened without the coalition forces led by the U.S. And, I am convinced, almost all of the progress in Iraq and throughout the Middle East will be lost if those forces are withdrawn faster than the Iraqi military is capable of securing the country.

The leaders of Iraq’s duly elected government understand this, and they asked me for reassurance about America’s commitment. The question is whether the American people and enough of their representatives in Congress from both parties understand this. I am disappointed by Democrats who are more focused on how President Bush took America into the war in Iraq almost three years ago, and by Republicans who are more worried about whether the war will bring them down in next November’s elections, than they are concerned about how we continue the progress in Iraq in the months and years ahead.

Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While U.S. public opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today. What a colossal mistake it would be for America’s bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory.

If only there were more Democrats with the backbone on Senator Lieberman. Unfortunately, politicians live off publicity, and Democratic politicians know the way to get on the news is to trash the war effort. Because it doesn’t fit the model of the story the media wants to report, Lieberman’s man-bites-dog stance on the war isn’t going to get any attention. But some things—like security for our nation and freedom for the 27 million people of Iraq—are a little more important than winning the next election or getting your mug on the nightly news. It might be hard for this nation of cynics to believe, but there was a time when politicians put their own ambitions behind the best interests of the country. Will that ever happen again?