Out of the Loop Like a lot of people on the net apparently, I watched the interview with Senators Richard Lugar and Joseph Biden last night on "Newshour with Jim Lehrer". As a sidenote, I think I'm the 100th person to blog about this interview but the first to get the name right. Anyhow, it was shocking how both Lugar and Biden, old Senate Warhorses in the body since the 1970s, were making identical statements. Now Biden is hardly a fringe liberal, and Lugar is hardly a kool-aid drinking righty, but nonetheless they are in different parties in an election year. But, they are also GROWN UPS. A characteristic highly lacking in Washington. Two individuals more highly qualified to be President than many of the men who've been there during their tenures (and I'm sure they think that way too). Lugar is the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden its ranking minority member. In other words they are at the top of the heirarchy in the Senate. Both said it has been at least a year since the President consulted them on Iraq, both have been trying to get appointments (probably separately or jointly -- and certainly in all cases with both having knowledge of separate attempts). Neither has succeeded. Lugar is the far less dramatic of the two, Biden has a tendency for flowery language and dramatics, but one could not listen to even Lugar without thinking there is a considerable amount of concern and anger at the Bush Administration behind the facade. They both came across as statesman who have seen the abyss and who believe the President refuses to take off his blinders. When Dick Lugar thinks it's getting out of control, its time for some concern.