Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman recently returned from a visit to Iraq and made himself the toast of Republican Washington by endorsing President Bush's plan for victory. Noting the often-unreported progress -- satellite dishes on rooftops, more cell phones in Iraqi hands-- Lieberman called for America to stay the course. Loss of will at this point, he said, would seize defeat from the coming victory.
 He was praised by the president and invited to lunch with Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon, fueling speculation that when Rummy leaves -- sooner than later -- Lieberman might be his successor and take over running the war.
This was reminiscent of another ambitious politician, another year, another war. In 1967, George Romney paid a visit to Vietnam as part of his preparation to seek the GOP presidential nomination the next year. Over time, Romney came to understand that his tour was essentially a dog-and-pony show for visiting VIPs. "I just had the greatest brainwashing that anybody can get when you go over to Vietnam," said Romney, "not only by the generals but also by the diplomatic corps."
When he heard that, Sen. Eugene McCarthy remarked, "Brainwashed? With Romney a light rinse would do." Ditto Joe Lieberman.
Some people always will be remembered for a single act. Charles Lindbergh, John Wilkes Booth and Lady Godiva come to mind. Also, Gene McCarthy.
In 1967, a substantial proportion of President Lyndon Johnson's own party had come to oppose the war in Vietnam. Teach-ins, protest marches, draft-card burnings were common on campuses where 6.9 million students enrolled, many of them draft eligible or soon to be. A political gadfly named  Allard Lowenstein deputized himself to find someone to challenge Johnson in the Democratic primaries. The students were the base, he told Robert Kennedy, whom many thought to be the natural heir to his slain brother's presidency, but Kennedy declined to run, saying Johnson could not be beat.
Lowenstein tried several others, eventually finding Sen. Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota reluctant but interested. To McCarthy's mind, America was being drained of its material and moral resources, pressing problems were being ignored at home in pursuit of a hopeless war abroad.
McCarthy said he decided to call a halt. When he announced his challenge to Johnson, it was greeted with scorn by the Democratic establishment. However, what Lowenstein promised the students delivered. Most were not old enough to vote, but they could organize. After McCarthy won 42 percent in the New Hampshire primary, Johnson withdrew.
The most popular poster in the ensuing McCarthy campaign showed a photo of the senator standing solitary on a cobblestone street with the caption, "He stood up alone and something happened."
So much happened in 1968. Robert Kennedy entered the race and was murdered, as was Dr. Martin Luther King; the Democratic convention in Chicago erupted into violence; Vice President Hubert Humphrey won the nomination without entering a single primary, then lost to Richard Nixon and the war in Vietnam went on. McCarthy was the catalyst who set off the most tumultuous political year in our nation's modern history.
It was an axiom of the time that a sitting president could not be denied re-nomination. McCarthy demonstrated that the presidential nominating process in America was rigged to assure that result, and many changes were forthcoming after 1968.
Shortly thereafter, McCarthy retired from the Senate and devoted himself to writing books, poetry and lecturing. He ran for president a few more times, mainly to find a platform for his ideas, and he found honor in the many universities he visited where his act of courage in 1968 was not forgotten.
 McCarthy won no popularity contests among modern politicians, and with penetrating wit he returned their affection. Garrison Keillor wrote a warm eulogy to his fellow Minnesotan, including this McCarthy observation: "One thing about a pig. He thinks he's warm if his nose is warm. I saw a bunch of pigs one time that had frozen together in a rosette, each one's nose tucked under the rump of the one in front. We have a lot of pigs in politics."
The senator with the warmest nose in Washington today is Joe Lieberman.
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