Posted by
Bert Chapman on Friday, April 06, 2007 4:46:41 PM
Michigan Senator Carl Levin chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee and is also on the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Consequently, he is an important player in sculpting congressional national security policymaking. Levin has gotten a lot of attention recently for posting the Defense Dept Inspector General's report on the Iraq intelligence activities of former DOD Undersecretary Douglas Feith on his website.
Considering the already voluminous body of literature documenting prewar U.S. intelligence failures in Iraq, it's difficult to determine what constructive use publication of this report will have. Unfortunately, Carl Levin is an anal retentive prick who's more concerned with looking good in his three piece pinstripe suits and scoring pedantic political points than actually providing constructive and positive oversight to the military. It would be nice if Levin and his Democratic congressional colleagues, with the honorable exception of Connecticut's Joe Lieberman, actually wanted to help the U.S. win its war against Islamist terror in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. It would be extremely nice if Levin and company would commission federal agencies, the military, and academe to find ways of winning the war against Islamist terror.
Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen. Carl Levin has probably never had a constructive solution to a military matter during his entire political career. Instead of conducting effective oversight, giving the military the tools they need to win wars, and providing positive motivation and encouragement to civilian and military policymakers, Carl Levin has been more concerned with bolstering his ego and engaging in rhetorical grandstanding.
It would be nice to think that the Senate Armed Services Committee will have a statesman and constructive policymaker guiding its deliberations someday. Unfortunately, that will have to wait at least until January 2009 because Unleavened Carl will be the pedantic playground bully over this important committee's hearings until then.