Someone else has spoken up and affirmed JK’s leadership in an op-ed in the Boston Herald today. Jeff Lewis is a moderate Republican, former staff director for Sen. John Heinz and currently president of the Heinz Family Philanthropies.

He first outlines where he sees need.

The question that engages many of us – not as Democrats or Republicans but as human beings – is how to approach the project of restoring America’s place in the world.

America must find a path out of Iraq, rebuild our military, re-engage the fight in Afghanistan, restore our diplomacy - especially in the Middle East - and suture together the security coalitions that this administration tore apart with its preference for unilateral action and its disdain for our allies.

Our role, our responsibility, is to engage our allies - and our adversaries - on the problems that can no longer be confined behind borders. We need a fair trade policy with China and India that stops driving Americans’ jobs from our country. We need to keep our doors open to visitors without alienating our neighbors and further eroding simple common decency toward migrants.

We must lead, not follow, other nations in limiting carbon emissions to fight global warming. We must stop global trafficking in drugs and sex slaves in ways that honor the dignity of its victims and the sovereignty of the nations involved.

How do you accomplish all of these things in a world threatened by the proliferation of dangerous weapons and divisive ideologies, especially when our White House flexes its political muscle by declaring anyone unpatriotic when he or she dares to disagree?

Then he goes on…

The neo-conservatives led us into a morass because they saw the world as they wanted it to be, not as it was. The people who will help lead us out will be both more realistic and more idealistic. These internationalists, these patriots, are in short-supply, which is what brings me to John Kerry.

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Hear then an inconvenient truth: At a national moment where foreign policy expertise is needed more urgently than ever before, Kerry offers this country a perspective on the world that is more sharply aligned with America’s interests than that offered by many of his Senate colleagues.

On a variety of key and core issues, he has been right on the merits and he has gotten to these positions long before the rest of the pack.

For example, long before the Baker-Hamilton Commission Report, Kerry had a plan for bringing the troops home from Iraq and forcing the Iraqis to fight for their own democracy.

He concludes with this…

We simply can’t wait for January 2009 for the leadership we need. There’s an important role for Kerry to play, now. For those of us who still hold on as moderate Republicans of the past, Kerry’s is the only voice making sense, presenting a strategy and talking honestly and openly about the challenges we face and the country he loves.

Well said, Mr. Lewis. Though it’s not only moderate Republicans who look to JK for leadership. There are many in the reality-based community who appreciate the leadership JK has shown for many years and continues to provide.

As JK said on the Senate floor on Jan. 24th:

I asked the question in 1971: How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? Although I knew going into public service I wanted to be in a place where I could have an impact should there be a choice of war in the future, but I never thought that I would be reliving the need to ask that question again.

We are there. Most of our colleagues understand this is a mistake. Most of our colleagues understand that 21,000 troops is not going to pacify Iraq. So all of us have a deep-rooted obligation, a deep moral obligation to ask ourselves what we can do to further the interests of our Nation and honor the sacrifices of those troops themselves. I think it is to get this policy right.

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I don’t want the next President to find that he or she has inherited a nation still divided and a policy destined to end as Vietnam did, in a bitter or sad legacy. I intend to devote all my efforts and energies over the next 2 years, not to the race for the Presidency for myself but for doing whatever I can to ensure that the next President can take the oath with a reasonable prospect of success for him or her–for the United States. And I intend to speak the truth as I find it without regard for political correctness or partisan advantage, to advise my colleagues and my fellow citizens to the best of my ability and judgment, and to support every action the Senate may reasonably and constitutionally take to guide and direct the ship of state.

This mission, this responsibility, is something all of us must accept.

H/T to The Democratic Daily for the transcript