Dean Barnett on Hugh Hewitt’s educational background:

You don’t get those degrees from Michigan Law School at the bottom of a Cracker Jack Box.

That’s right.  I believe you receive them in the mail after sending in any three proofs of purchase of Fruit Loops (which, in Hewitt’s case, is entirely appropriate).

What has the usual suspects in such a fit this time?  After five days of their glorious pledge drive aimed at the Senate…the House Republican leadership has decided to propose a benchmark resolution on Iraq!  Ha!  Enjoy that one, Hewitt.

More Barnett:

The other scenario, and frankly I find this one both more likely and more chilling, is that Boehner has never even considered, not for one second, the effect his resolution will have on the enemy. Hugh’s question caught him off guard and without an answer because to him, it seemed like a non-sequitur. 

Perhaps it is a non-sequitur (that would be one of those other tough Latin phrases Barnett learned while he was in law school–maybe he even knows how to translate this one properly!), because perhaps setting benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet is a necessary and important condition for determining the degree of success the surge has so that the government will have more information about how to make any changes that might be needed to improve the chances of the surge’s success.  Perhaps the world does not revolve around Hugh Hewitt and Dean Barnett, and perhaps they do not have the final word on all military matters (thank God for that).  I don’t think the surge will succeed, and I think setting benchmarks for people in league with death squads is a waste of time, but I am not John Boehner.  John Boehner almost certainly thinks the surge will work (and he would support it even if he didn’t), and can probably be taken at his word that he is trying to help give the White House some cover on what is fast becoming a losing issue for Mr. Bush.  He probably hasn’t considered what effect a benchmark resolution would have on the enemy, since a benchmark resolution is essentially a suggestion about how you might measure progress that you assume follows from the surge plan.  It is an act of oversight inspired by support for the plan and demonstrates an interest in being able to gauge what kind of progress is being made.  Leave it to two such fine legal minds as Hewitt and Barnett to miss the crucial distinction between this sort of resolution and the more obviously critical language of the Biden resolution.  In their rather depressingly poor understanding of the matter, “resolution” = betrayal, so whenever they hear someone proposing a “resolution” (no matter what it says) they suppose that it is proof of that person’s irresolution on the war.  I submit to you that these sorts of people have no business speaking publicly about matters of grave national importance, much less should they hold any sort of popular leadership role that might significantly influence others.