You're Not Paranoid If They're Really Out To Get You

So, I missed this the other day with the war czar but rather than the retired general I was thinking, Lt. Gen. Lute is actually an active duty officer. A three-star general which would, by the way, be outranked by a lot of the officials he's supposed to be overseeing. That's a bit suspicious because, of course, as active military personnel, he could have been ordered to take the post and not been allowed to decline it like oh so many before him.

But, really, this post over at TPM has me thinking. Congress is, in fact, really anti-Bush at the moment (I'm put it another way and say, I don't know, sane.) and the confirmation hearing for LTG Lute is going to give them another opportunity to hammer him and his increasingly unpopular war. I don't get why the Bushies would give their opponents such an opening just to rearrange the deckchairs. Normally, I'd think they were planning to use the confirmation hearing for another round of “Democrats aren't supporting the troops by not giving the president everything he needs” but that line of attack has been showing diminishing returns lately. So, either the national security advisor picture is really messed up and this is, in fact, a really necessary appointment or there's something else at play here.