Race only matters a tiny bit at the beginning of the game, towards the middle/end it means abosolutely nothing.It all depends on how you want to tank. All of the fighter classes can tank at least fairly well.
Guardians are the classic definition of Tank. Heavily armored, great defensive buffs and abilities and in most cases, if you're doing things right, you can get aggro easily and not lose it for the entire battle. The trade off is that you do basically no damage.
Berserkers are also heavily armored and have some nice def buffs and abilities but they get and keep hate mainly due to their damage. They also get some nice reactive buffs that help them keep hate. If you want to do damage but like being a heavily armored tank, go with zerker.
Paladins also can use plate armor, but they function best as ward and resist tanks. They do good damage and get a few heals as well, so they function pretty well as a jack of all trades. Their ward ability is what really sets them apart as tanks.
Monks can only wear leather armor and mostly rely on not getting hit. They have high avoidence and do the best damage of the fighter classes. They're hate control is not as good as the other classes, but its not completely non-existant as some would have you believe.
For just starting out I would go with a Zerker. Good damage output, good hate control, can wear the heaviest armor and, IMO, the easiest to learn.
Edited, Dec 15th 2006 5:06am by TheDakster