CONDOLEEZA DOES AS BADLY TODAY AS BUSH DID LAST NIGHT

The Bush family has long been clients of the al-Saud family. Sometimes it helps to understand George Bush's seemingly irrational policy choices if you keep that in mind. The Saudis and other Sunni powerbrokers in the Middle East have urged this foolish, failure-bound and costly escalation on him. The Sunnis and the oil industry, another mainstay of Bush family power and wealth. The American people don't want it. The American military doesn't want it. The few allies the U.S. has managed to hold on to in the wake of Bush's catastrophically destructive foreign policy don't want it. Despite a few reactionary militarists like Jim Marshall most Democrats don't want it. And now, it turns out, even more Republicans than anyone ever imagined also don't want it.

A reactionary dead-ender, Lieberman is even worse than Bush and, McConnell feels he can get away with supporting Bush by claiming it's his job as Minority Leader. But there aren't a hell of a lot of other Republicans defending Bush's disastrous speech of last night. Even as Bush seeks to provoke Iraq and expand the war into that country-- the ultimate neocon wet dream-- more and more GOP legislators are jumping on the anti-Bush bandwagon. In fact, quite a few Republican senators sounded like they were paying more attention to Russ Feingold than to their own Leaders. At the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this morning, it was sometimes hard to figure out who were the Republicans and who were the Democrats! You'd have been wrong if you thought Hagel is anything other than a conservative Republican from Nebraska even though he thought to expand on his "Alice In Wonderland" description of Bush's Iraq policies by giving an analysis of the speech: "I think this speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam-- if it's carried out. I will resist it."

I expect Hagel will resist it more strongly than many of the other Republicans who are bleating about it for the media today. More from the Foreign Relations Committee: "And to put the lives of Americans soldiers-- more, in the center of that, without first having something that's substantial, something we can point to, other than this sense of trust, other than looking someone in the eye," said Minnesota mental midget Norm Coleman, referring to Bush and al-Maliki, "having a conversation. I'm not prepared, at this time, to support that. It's-- the cost is too great." (Many observers feel Coleman will be more prepared after a phone call from Rove or Cheney, but it's nice that Minnesotans will have something like that to remember him by after Al Franken is sworn in as their next U.S. Senator.)

Oh, and speaking of Foreign Relations Committee members who are unlikely to be returned to the Senate in 2008, John Sununu sounded today like he probably won't be asking George Bush to come up to New Hampshire to campaign for him anytime soon. "There were some areas where I have a little bit more concern, such as whether or not the use of the troops discussed will really be appropriate in dealing with sectarian violence in Baghdad…"

George Voinovich, who just saw his Ohio colleague tarred with the Bush brush and defeated massively says he's "skeptical" of Bush's plans. He informed Condoleeza Rice that "I think you should know that I am skeptical that a surge of troops will bring an end to the escalation of violence and the insurgency in Iraq. Many of the generals that have served there have said they don't believe additional troops will be helpful in Baghdad particularly. And, Madam Secretary, my faith in Prime Minister Maliki's ability to
make the hard choices necessary to bring about political solutions has to be restored. What we need is a political solution between the Sunnis and the Shiite."

Even Lisa Murkowski, who isn't up for re-election told the Committee that Bush's plan is just so much hot air. "I would agree with Senator Hagel that, given the American lives that have been lost in Iraq, we want to make sure that we have a policy that is worthy of their sacrifices. And those are his words. And I think they're very well spoken. But I'm not convinced, as I look to the plan that the president presented yesterday, that what we're seeing is that much different than what we have been doing in the past." If Bush can't hold on to rubber stamp dead-enders like her, who can he count on? Apparently not even a kook like David Vitter (R-LA) who expressed "concern" that "we may commit the same mistake I think we clearly have in the past, which is too little, maybe too late."

Even one of the most far right extremists in the history of the U.S. Senate, Sam Brownback, sounded like as far as he's concerned Bush, McCain, McConnell and Lieberman are on their own: "I do not believe that sending more troops to Iraq is the answer. Iraq requires a political rather than a military solution." Wow! Sam Brownback gets it... and Joe Lieberman doesn't. Who were the Democratic senators that were campaigning for him a few months ago?