A few more post-SOTU thoughts

Dark Lord Cheney got awfully testy with Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday: Transcript: CNN Interview with Cheney TPM Muckraker 01/24/07. If he's gets this grumpy when Wolfie starts asking a few questions like a real journalist might ask, how is going to do under cross-examination by Patrick Fitzgerald?

Also at TPM Muckraker, Republican Chuck Hagel puts on a good show of being a real Senator: Hagel: "There Is No Plan" 01/24/07. He was harshing on war supporters who whine about the fact that elected officials dare to question the war plans of Dear Leader Bush just because three-quarters or so of the American people are doing so. I think he was immediately replying to a weenie statement from Richard Lugar, another alleged Republican "moderate", suggesting that actually dissenting from Dear Leader's wisdom was just so inappropriate. But it could also apply to Joe Lieberman, who seems to grow more pathetic by the day, who was on the PBS Newshour with Hagel to carry Dear Leader's water for him. (Longtime war supporter Lieberman and longtime war supporter turned timid war critic Lugar are paired up to debate the war - and this is "quality journalism" on public TV!)

It's nice that Hagel (who also voted for the Military Commissions Act of 2006, aka, the Torture Legalization Act) has finally started criticizing this disaster of a war that he loyally supported for nearly four years. Robert Scheer, an early critic of the Vietnam War and still one of our best pundits - though certainly not admitted to the Society of Big Pundits - praised Hagel to the high heavens in a column last week: Chuck Hagel for President! Truthdig.org 01/16/07. I just don't get that. Why wasn't Hagel raising Cain about this disaster of a war when his Party controlled Congress? And it's fine that he's coming around and I don't much care whether his reasons are "sincere" or opportunistic. But let's face it: he's courageously battling for ... a non-binding resolution saying what everybody in the world outside Joe Lieberman and the Republican base understands, that the McCain escalation Bush is implementing is yet another bad idea.

And one more thing: why in the name of Ares are we bombing Somalia? (U.S. confirms second air strike in Somalia by Sahal Abdulle Reuters 01/24/07) Yeah, I know, it's to git "Al Qaida". Cheney's all-purpose bogeyman "Al Qaida", anyway. I sure hope the Foreign Relations Committees investigate that. Bombing another country is serious business. I like to use a quote from George McGovern and Jim McGovern (no relation) from 06/06/05: "Wars are easy to get into, but hard as hell to get out of." That's very true. Before we slide into yet another war in Somalia, I'd like to see Congress thoroughly examine what's happening. Since they have the war power in our Constitutional system. And since Cheney and Bush are incredibly destructive and reckless when trying to do wars.

Tags: bush, cheney, chuck hagel, iraq war, somalia

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