Hagel Cranky on Stephanopoulos ABC Morning Show

The Dems have their own
problems, but two Republican Senators who may run for president were on the ABC Sunday Morning Show and though I missed most of McCain [except his somewhat impolitic endorsement of the Colts over the Bears in vote-rich Chicago], Hagel came across as querulous and defensive on his answers to GS's pointed questions about "what exactly are you for?"

Hagel almost resented the question, and when GS prodded him for specifics, started to retort in a three-octave range that made him sound like Dennis Kucinich. Truth is, Hagel has no answer to the NIE report that American withdrawal will leave Iraq and the whole region in a complete shambles and perhaps region-wide war.

And Hagel mentioned "McCain" several times in a somewhat disrespectful way, not calling him "Senator McCain," while giving other Senators their due as "Senator Clinton" and "Senator Biden." Not to mention Hagel's evasive answers to GS's points, which he answered by "read the [Levin/Hagel] proposal," without spelling out the specifics which would answer GS's queries. Methinks this gruff and unready persona won't play well in a national contest for pres, which GS asked Hagel about and which Hagel dodged. Could be a one-hit wonder.

And the Dems refuse to answer this elephant-in-the-living-room question. Yes, we are in the middle of a civil war [or several civil wars, as Iraq devolves into a Hobbesian war of all against all], but the implosion of an early American exit would bring in overt Iranian support for the Shi'ites, Saudi/Egyptian/Jordanian support for Sunnis, and a possible Turkish incursion into Kurdistan. The US "occupying forces" are now actually desired by most Iraqis, if only to avert an even worse situation. A recent poll studiously ignored by the ultra-left MSM demonstrates that most Sunnis and half the Shi'ites and all the Kurds support the US presence.

And a participant in the NIE exercise told me he spent months in hammer-and-tongs robust debate in the composition of the Estimate, classified Top Secret, only to see not only the unclassified but some highly classified material on the front page of the Washington Post on Friday morning. The Post, of course, emphasized the negative half-empty glass. For its ultra-left reasons, the Post avoided mentioning much about the catastrophe awaiting the region should the US heed the Kucinich/Edwards wing of the Democratic Party.

Pernicious Meddling by Democratic Senators on Lebanon

The Economist has a good backgrounder on Lebanon. This country is in the process of seeing the democratic reforms of the Cedar Revolution undone by the creeping "direct action" of a street mob in Beirut. And the Western media ignore this attempt by a minority of 40% to seize the government by a coup de pouce while they are in a tizzy of fits and snits because President Bush has put his speech on Iraq off until January.

Enter stage left a bumbling second-rate double-digit IQ misfit from Florida who happens to have stumbled into being re-elected by facing a less-than-competent Republican. The photo of Sen. Bill Nelson sitting with Bashar Assad is comic, in an opera bouffe fashion. As the term implies, both of these fellows are buffoons, but Assad is a murderous buffoon who killed Rafiq Hariri and is exerting every effort to halt the UN Investigative Committee's Inquiry by trying to overthrow the Lebanese government. I wonder if Bill the bland buffoon asked Assad the killer buffoon whether he had anything to do with it? Billy did admit to getting Assad to say he's interested in working with the US on the Iraq border and Iraqi internal security issues. But on the only issue that Bashar has any influence over, this criminal told Nelson that Lebanon and Syria's support for Hezbollah and Hamas were none of the US's business.

The Wall Street Journal has a serious article which makes a case for Congress getting more involved, but unfortunately, Nelson isn't the only buffoon wanting to visit Damascus. A real parade of fools, three more of the most mendacious slippery mike-hogging types in Congress, Sens. Dodd, Specter, and of course, J[ust] F[or] Kerry are eager to demonstrate their heft and gravitas by going to Damascus, getting the photo-op sitting next to the stick-insect [can't wait to see the bouffant Kerry and crew-cut baby-Assad photo], and then coming back to be interviewed by "serious" journalists like Baby-Face Russert and Earnest Brian Williams. And don't forget Matt Lauer.

These solons are ostensibly going to Damascus about Iraq, but the Arab world will interpret their visits as paying homage to Assad, thereby increasing this incompetent blustering nitwit's prestige and emboldening him to more excesses in Lebanon, the only place that Assad has real influence.

So serial recidivist megalo-mikehogs like Dodd, Nelson, Specter and Hairdo are going to visit an all-but-open-and-shut-case murderer of the country next door. And giving American foreign influence in the region an even less enviable profile.

President Bush and Condi Rice are going to have to exercise what little political clout they have left, and use it wisely, to restrain these nitwits on their self-promoting junkets.

Ah, but there's always Dennis Kucinich. That photo-op will be precious as this five-foot wonder stands next to six-six stick-insect Assad!