Shifty Chuck Schumer

Are Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer Democrats or Americans first?

I think it's clear.

They put party before principle.

They put personal political opportunity ahead of the good of the nation.

There is no question that Dems hope to make political hay in Iraq.


This morning on FOX News Sunday, I caught the very end of a segment with Chuck Schumer and Arlen Specter.

Chris Wallace was asking Schumer to comment on Harry Reid's comment: "I believe ... that this war is lost."

Schumer was an absolute buffoon, trying to explain that Reid didn't really mean that the war is lost.

He tried to say that Dems aren't about throwing their hands up in surrender.

Schumer said that if the mission is redefined, if it becomes just a series of small operations targeting al Qaeda in Iraq, then the war is not lost.

He floundered around, insisting that Reid meant the war as it's now defined is lost, but he never meant to say that the war is lost.

Schumer did more dodging and lame rationalizing than Bill Clinton at his slickest.

Wallace challenged Schumer with his own words as well as Reid's. He questioned whether it was appropriate for Dems to be attempting to capitalize politically on the war in Iraq.

For instance:

Reid: We're going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war.

Schumer: Look at the poll numbers of Republican senators, and the war in Iraq is a lead weight attached to their ankles.

Schumer brushed it off.

Specter rather impotently called Schumer on his hypocrisy. It wasn't much of a rebuttal, but at least he didn't just sit there while Schumer played semantical games.

Schumer claimed that the Dems are pro-victory in Iraq.

That, of course, isn't the case.

Schumer has made the Dems' intentions very clear.

Look at the poll numbers of Republican senators, and the war in Iraq is a lead weight attached to their ankles. They know that, and we've just been at this a couple of months and we're going to keep at it. It's not an accident that the ones who are squirming the most are the ones who are up in '08.

Defeat in Iraq is in the Dems' self-interest.

How can they be on the same page as America's enemies?

How can they live with themselves?

Seriously. It's nauseating.
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On another Sunday morning show note:

I want to watch the podcast of today's Meet the Press.

A number of guests were on the program to discuss the shootings on the Virginia Tech campus. University president Charles Steger was interviewed.

Did Tim Russert bring up the Cho "manifesto" and NBC's role in promoting it?

I'd like to know.

I only saw a little of the roundtable discussion, including panel members Doris Kearns Goodwin, David Gregory, Jon Meacham, and Pete Williams. Russert did launch the Virginia Tech topic. I heard a few bits about gun control and Seung-Hui Cho's "manifesto," but I didn't hear the NBC group talk about NBC's disgraceful glorification of the killer.

Perhaps I missed it.

I saw enough to notice that Doris Kearns Goodwin had work done on her eyes. She never struck me as the type that would do that.

Kenny Rogers, yes. Kearns Goodwin, no.