While I’m sure if I go back and refight the 1980s Dick Lugar and I would have many disagreements over Latin American policy, but today, I view him as a very reasonable voice on foreign affairs. Not surprisingly, the administration is scared of him and his sober assessments of the situation in Iraq.
Novak sounds the alarm that Lugar is off the reservation and suggests that something dark is happening. Actually nothing dark is happening, Lugar is just serious and thinks the President should level with the public and put together a serious plan. Lugar has had to shame the President to do the right thing on Russian non-proliferation and now he has to do it again. And he’ll probably do it on Afghanistan. Will the administration listen? Probably not. That’s too bad, Lugar would be Secretary of State in a sane Republican world. Of course, there is a sane SoS now and it doesn’t matter.