Quote of the Day

Admittedly, the day is still young and this quote could be trumped many times over during the Oscars or tonight's debut of Fox News Channel's new blogging show "It's Out There", but this is at least an early contender for the title.

On "Meet the Press", asked whether Senate Democrats' intent to take a mulligan on their duly enacted authorization of the use of military force in Iraq constitutes an attempt to tie the President's hands, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee) offered:

Of course we're trying to tie the President's hands.

Russert had to hit Levin with the question a few times, but he finally got him to acknowledge it in those terms.  The hand-tying in question would involve a cap the number of troops that the President and our generals believe are necessary to achieve victory in Iraq and the imposition of a different (more "limited") military strategy than the executive branch sees fit.

In the midst of his rhetorical gymnastics aimed at painting this effort as something other than a disingenuous political power grab, Levin followed minutes later with this astonishingly contradictory line:

To heck with the politics here.  We're in the middle of a war.