Iraq and Technical Difficulties

What do you get when you cross a longtime legislator, a cheap audio setup, and a questionable war?

You get my new favorite Washington Post article. What could have been just another Republican leaving the pro-war camp was instead the most useful, moving public appearance by an equally public official since Howard Dean let loose.

Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) preached through his entire collection of talking points without delivering a single clear point or complete sentence, thanks to malevolently malfunctioning audio equipment that winked on and off throughout the entire presentation.

The venerable Senator made such profound statements as "I do believe it's fair to say that (long audio gap, series of thumps) to tell you that there are very few wars that (audio gap, more thumps, whispered expletive, thumps)." Not content with such relatively commonplace comments, Domenici went so far as to claim that the war "was (audio gap)."

The multiple gaps and mysterious thumps obscured and deterred whatever message New Mexico's finest may have been trying to communicate, but we heartily applaud him anyway. If we are to truly move forward on the issue of war in Iraq, we must all look to whispered expletives and awkward silences to take the debate to the place it should have been all along.