California Conservative

I didn’t think I’d ever say that after briefly skimming through the ISG but I’m now forced to agree with something an ISG member said. The grand moment happened during last night’s Newshour with Jim Lehrer. Here’s the key exchange:

MARGARET WARNER: How did your early experiences, both as a legislator and then as a Supreme Court justice, help inform you? And did it help you bring to the table in this commission exercise?
SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR: Oh, nothing, probably, except how to ask a few questions.

We finally have a ISG member admit that they didn’t have a clue about foreign policy. I’ve often wondered why she was part of the Surrender Group since she’s had no experience with setting foreign policy. I would’ve said that she didn’t have experience in establishing policies but that wouldn’t be accurate since she wrote new law as part of the Supreme Court. In fact, she helped ‘write’ new law all too often.

I was watching this segment and the horrified look on Margeret Warner’s face made my sacrifice of listening to O’Connor and Vernon Jordan worthwhile. To her credit, Warner started O’Connor’s resuscitation immediately:

MARGARET WARNER: Nothing about forging coalitions?
SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR: Oh, perhaps a little of that, but it wasn’t necessary here. The members of the commission understood very well that it was desirable to have a consensus.

Besides being an attempted resuscitation, this exchange is yet another piece of proof of this group’s hubris. They simply are full of themselves. They really think that they’re above the fray, larger-than-life serious people come to rescue the dimwit living in the White House.

The only man in touch with reality from the group is an old favorite of mine, Al Simpson. Sen. Simpson made one of the funniest statements in the history of Sunday morning political programming here:

WALLACE: Some Republicans, though, Senator, have also been unhappy with the way the vice president handled this. I want to point out one example. Peggy Noonan, the former Reagan speech writer, wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal in which she said that Dick Cheney has become the hate magnet for this administration.
And then she went on to say this. Take a look. She said, “So Mr. Bush may feel in time that he has reason to want to put in a new vice president in order to pick a successor who’ll presumably have an edge in the primaries.” Senator Simpson, what do you make of that?
SIMPSON: Well, we have a word for it, but we won’t use it here, out here in the wild west. Let me tell you, that is…she is a wonderful gal. And I mean, I know her, and when I read her words, they’re lyrical and they’re marvelous.
Dick Cheney has become the hate symbol from the beginning. He was the hate symbol when he was with Halliburton. He was the hate symbol when he came in and the votes with South Africa and this and that. And then he was the hate symbol of hiding an energy conference. He was the hate symbol of terrorists, hate symbol of torture.
Let me tell you, those who don’t like him have put a big red tail on his bum, and cloven hooves, and horns on his head. And let me tell you, if anybody thinks, if this had happened to anybody else in America, it would have been like a sparrow belch in a typhoon.

I remember the fun people in Washington, and across the country, had with Simpson’s line that the fuss surrounding Cheney’s hunting accident.

And let me tell you, if anybody thinks, if this had happened to anybody else in America, it would have been like a sparrow belch in a typhoon.

Even Chris Wallace was amused by it:

WALLACE: Could you be a little more colorful, Senator?

I wish Alan Simpson was still part of the Senate. He was, and is, a man with a disarming sense of humor, with an abundance of common sense and an attitude of getting things done to improve Americans’ lives.

In other words, he was the one who least fit with the Surrender Group. (BTW, I’d give an honorable mention to Leon Panetta in that category.)

Especially in light of Justice O’Connor’s statement.

Technorati Tags: ISG, Sandra Day O’Connor, Alan Simpson, Leon Panetta

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Friday, December 8th, 2006 at 10:02 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Military, W. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.