Just eight years after Joe Lieberman was on the Democratic Party's presidential ticket, a growing number of conservatives have a better idea: put in him on the Republican Party's presidential ticket.

The Weekly Standard's William Kristol touted the idea in his column this week. After running a lengthy excerpt of a speech Lieberman recently gave, imploring Democrats to embrace Bush's vision for combating "Islamist extremism," Kristol concluded:

Read the whole speech on Lieberman's website. As for Rudy and John and Fred and Mitt and Mike: Take a break from kissing babies to pick up the phone and congratulate Joe. Seek his endorsement after you win the nomination. What the heck--offer him the vice presidency. (Rudy, you might try State or Defense, since you'll need a pro-life running mate.)

But McCain-Lieberman, Thompson-Lieberman, Romney-Lieberman, Huckabee-Lieberman -- those sound like winning tickets to us. It's true, given the behavior of the congressional Democrats, the GOP nominee might well win with a more conventional running mate. But why settle for a victory if you can have a realignment?

The idea is, oddly enough, drawing praise in several conservative circles. National Review's Peter Wehner seems to like Kristol's suggestion, while conservative blogger Mark Noonan at Blogs for Bush went so far as to describe Lieberman as "the ideal candidate for Vice President on the Republican ticket in 2008."

At the risk of raining on the parade, this seems ridiculously far-fetched. As humiliating as Lieberman is on matters of foreign policy and national security, he's also fairly liberal on most domestic policy matters, including abortion and gay rights. Is the Republican Party so devoid of leaders that can win a national election that it has to look beyond the GOP for running mates?