Every political convention has its underachiever. At the 2004 Democratic National Convention, this dubious distinction belonged to Sen. Joe Lieberman.

It was only four years ago that Lieberman was his party's vice-presidential candidate. Now, following a war that he strongly supported but was unpopular with the base, Lieberman has lost his luster within the Democratic Party. Slighted by Al Gore, upstaged by Howard Dean and largely ignored by the delegates, Lieberman is truly now a man without a party.

Lieberman's speech was not lacking in gusto, nor was it poorly delivered. Out of the hundreds of speakers last week, Lieberman was the only one to express support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was also the only speaker to request that Democrats refrain from characterizing President Bush as a fascist tyrant. "We should not resort to personally demonizing" political opponents, Lieberman pled.

Perhaps he was expressing dismay at the fact that Michael Moore, who received praise by none other than Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, the Congressional Black Caucus and many of Lieberman's senatorial colleagues, was cheered like a rock star as he made the rounds in Boston and toured the convention floor. Clearly, Lieberman's appeal to civility fell on deaf ears.

If anything, Lieberman's speech showed how ineffective a nominee he would have been. These are polarizing times, and Lieberman is hardly a polarizing figure. His moderate message does not excite the base, it does not inspire anger and a visceral revulsion toward the president, which, despite the official call for a positive message during the convention, is what the Kerry campaign is increasingly trying to cultivate among voters.

Lieberman's brief speech did not stray from his ordinary fare. It was a righteous call to arms, a reminder of the war on terror's moral dimension and the rightness of our cause. There were Wilsonian invocations of the imperative to spread democracy and Trumanesque calls for a vigilant defense of our freedoms.

But Democratic conventioneers last week were not interested in hearing about petty tasks such as defending Western civilization from "Islamist terrorists" and "fanatics who are as great a threat to our security and freedom as the Nazis and communists." These concerns paled in importance next to "bread and butter" Democratic issues and repeatedly intimating that the president is a liar.

Lieberman issued a plaintive, lonely call for a robust American effort at spreading freedom abroad. It was a refreshing interlude from the droning on about Kerry's war record. Amid all of his tough talk, which he rushed through for lack of applause, Lieberman seemed to emit a mental sigh of relief when he said Kerry would "build bridges with Islamic people throughout the world." That line, unsurprisingly, generated more approbation than any other.

Toward the end of his address, Lieberman spiritedly invoked former Democratic presidents and their foreign policy legacies, perhaps to remind liberals that their party is the party of Woodrow Wilson, who sought to "make the world safe for democracy," FDR, who worked to "end isolationism and defeat fascism," Harry Truman, who tirelessly fought to "stop communism with the swords of America's military," as well as John F. Kennedy and his "muscular and idealistic internationalism."

The original draft of Lieberman's speech mentioned every Democratic president of the 20th century, excluding Jimmy Carter (and, for obvious reasons, LBJ). Rightly so, for Lieberman and Carter have little in common when it comes to worldview, what with the 39th president's constant maligning of President Bush and the Iraq war and chumming it up with Michael Moore one evening in a FleetCenter skybox.

Yet while delivering the speech, perhaps realizing how poorly it was being received, Lieberman added a throwaway line, lamely praising Carter for his "commitment to protecting human rights around the world."

One would have thought that American victories in Afghanistan and Iraq, specifically the liberation of some 50 million once-terrorized people, would be a source of pride for the party of Wilson, Roosevelt and Kennedy. True, this administration made mistakes in pressing the case for war, but at the end of the day, citizens of this country can be unequivocally proud of the fact that we are attempting to impart, however imperfectly, liberal democracy to nations that up until recently squirmed under the dual jackboots of religious fascism and Stalinist terror.

Lieberman told the Democrats in Boston that they should appreciate the magnitude of what our military has accomplished, and there is little doubt that the Republicans will use American victories in Afghanistan and Iraq to portray President Bush as liberator. But Democrats should not forget that an admirable tradition of liberal internationalism exists within their party. It's a shame that the standard bearer of this legacy would be so spurned by the party that asked him to help lead it a mere four years ago.

James Kirchick, an intern at AEI, is a junior at Yale University and a columnist for the Yale Daily News.