Whose idea was this anyway?

I don't normally watch This Week on Sunday mornings. In the day it was my preference for Sunday talkers--David Brinkley was smart and always fair and his panel was always entertaining. What George Stephanopoulos has done to the program need not be mentioned here, it's been chronicled elsewhere. What I wonder is how a Katrina vanden Huevel gets a seat at a table where people--anyone!--are trying to discuss serious issues!

Vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation is an outspoken liberal and has no compunction about stating her opinion on all-things Bush related. I don't know if she's a regular or rotating guest exactly. Frankly, I don't care, but she was the guest panelist today with the George's and Cokie Roberts.

The panelists gathered after Stephi's interview of Michael Chertoff, discussing Dick Cheney's week and the Congressional findings on Hurricane Katrina. Hearing her speak, I at least now understand where some of the buffoons at ESPN get their schtick.

She pontificated on multiple occasions about Dick Cheney's shooting last week as grand metaphor for the super-secretive Bush Administration (standard left-wing blog fare) to the point that George Will had to slap her down with some common sense commentary about politicians and the accidents that happen to them. Honestly, I got the impression as I watched Will based on his face and body language that in a less-polite setting he'd have blasted her for the nonsensical rhetoric she was spouting. I know I would have.

The point that got me however was a few minutes later when Stephi brought up the Palestinian elections, whereupon she began a long rant which began with, "We've witnessed the abject failure that is the Bush Administration foreign policy..." to describe the President's vision of a ME transformed by democracy.

Utter ridiculousness in light of 3 elections in Iraq last year, the freest elections in Egypt in decades and the Cedar uprising last spring. She points out that Hamas in charge is not a good result for the United States (which it isn't) and uses it as a club to bash the administration.

What she doesn't acknowledge is that democracy isn't easy and you don't always get everything you want. Her rhetoric begged a question that no one asked her on this topic: what would she say if the Administration had backed a results-specific policy aimed at promoting a "free" election with a favored winner?

She wants her cake and to eat it too. But then I shouldn't be surprised by someone who publishes stuff like this.