Beinart: Lou Dobbs Could Be a 'Saner Perot'

Peter Beinart has hopped on the Lou Dobbs-for-president train -- sort of.

In the new issue of Time, the former New Republic editor says the fulminating CNN host has the best shot of anyone at mounting a viable third-party candidacy. He could, says Beinart, serve as "a saner [Ross] Rerot," a single-issue populist who "could win over downscale Republicans who like Mike Huckabee's anti-corporate populism. And he might pick up a few John Edwards supporters as well -- white male union types who think Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are too pro-immigration and too NPR."

Of course, Beinart says all this not to endorse Dobbs -- who is doing everything he can to encourage speculation about his presidential ambitions, while claiming not to want the job -- but to knock Mike Bloomberg, who, he says, doesn't stand a plausible chance of playing spoiler, much less winning the White House.

The column's not online yet, but I'll add a link when it is.

CORRECTION: Ingrid Sischy was neither "ousted" nor "canned" from her position as Interview magazine editor, as I said earlier in the week. She resigned her post in connection with co-owner Sandra Brant's decision to sell her interest in Interview's parent company, Brant Publications. I regret the error.