Poor Silvestre. He was born with a mercury-contaminated spoon in his head.
How else to explain a U.S. congressman's discombobulation at a few simple questions concerning U.S. intelligence-related matters -- and what should have been even simpler softballs for Silvestre Reyes, who happens to be the incoming chairman of the House intelligence committee.
As you are surely aware by now, when asked by CQ's national security editor whether al Qaeda is Sunni or Shia, Mr. Reyes answered, “Predominantly -- probably Shiite.” As the reporter clarified in print with more than a trifle disgust: "He couldn't have been more wrong. Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni" (italics original. The secular split, incidentally, was over Mohammed's proper line of succession. The Shia -- a word meaning "followers of Ali" -- believe in a family bloodline or God's appointed imams, while Sunnis -- from "followers of the Prophet's traditions" -- believe in a meritocratic line, which was, in fact, how the first caliph was chosen).
There's no reason you should have known that, but every reason an intelligence chair should have.
When asked about Hezbollah -- another little something or other that has dominated the news lately and has something or other to do with vital U.S. interests -- Reyes was just as keen. "Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah ... Why do you ask me these questions at 5 o’clock? ... But speaking only for myself, it’s hard to keep things in perspective and in the categories."
As Reyes implied, the onset of late afternoon doesn't normally throw most professionals into a state of dazzled mental exhaustion, but it is indeed "hard to keep things" straight when you never had a grip to begin with.
Nor does the intelligence chair seem to have much of a grip on intelligent policy. As for adding yet more American bull's-eyes to the bloody Iraqi mix, Reyes pondered and thunk: "If it’s going to target the militias and eliminate them, I think that’s a worthwhile investment." Yes, the "if" is the big question, is it not -- and which on-the-ground consensus has answered with a deafening "No way."
Reyes, who voted against the war, thunk some more and added that on "a temporary basis, I’m willing to ramp them up by twenty or thirty thousand ... for, I don’t know, two months, four months, six months." Yeah, whatever ... pick a number, any number. And right, go ahead and encourage George -- not that he needs it -- and do so without fluid expertise in what in hell is going on.
What an embarrassment. You feel it, I feel it, and worse, conservatives know you and I feel it.
As an unabashed liberal, I can personally attest that the only pleasure we on the left have had for years came from laughing at the right's pervasive incompetence at the top. Its unrelenting penchant for getting just about everything wrong -- colossally wrong -- due to its abhorrence of real and factual knowledge was the only amusing thing about the whole lot.
Now comes the Democratic chairman of the House intelligence committee, the Honorable Mr. Reyes, trying to even the score. Somehow, amusement fails me.
Just as embarrassing is Nancy Pelosi's peculiar mismanagement. Wouldn't you, as speaker of the House, want to grill your appointee to head the intelligence committee before appointing him? Wouldn't you first want to know what he knows about the troublemakers in trouble spots in which young Americans are dying daily? Wouldn't you insist on subject proficiency? Wouldn't you want to vet his knowledge at least a smidgeon, before presenting him as a principal Democratic face of a "New Direction"?
If Pelosi did vet this hapless, $165,200-a-year featherweight, she should have dismissed his consideration out of hand. If she didn't bother, she has no business appointing anybody to anything.
For years, we on the left have rightly not hesitated in calling for the heads of the incompetent rubes and reprobates within the controlling conservative establishment. Hypocrisy is the only word for not openly naming incompetence within the opposing establishment. Fair is fair -- and inner examination as imperative as outward criticism.