A Surge of Wackiness

I'm watching Ike Skelton's opening statement at the "surge" hearings, and it's not very interesting. Conversely, Dave Weigel has a report that starts with the promising observation that elsewhere in Washington, "Newt Gingrich just wrapped a speech on 'an alternative history of the war since 9/11,' the product of 'immersion' (his word) in the history of Lincoln's and FDR's war-time decision-making."

Apparently, this really happened.

Newt's main take seems to be that Bush erred in the post-9/11 environment by failing to start enough wars ("Iraq, Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia would have been dealt with as a regional conflict") and seize enough authority to issue extra-legal regulations.