Gasbaggery indeed.

No longer the latest in Sunday talk, since CNN moved the program up to compete with MTP and "This Week," Wolf hosted a full house, mainly from abroad, sandwiched around two Senators clearly picked for their Tweedle-de-dum symmetry.

The headline for the two hours is no doubt this comment from Chuck Hagel, cast as a Republican maverick to Joe Lieberman's version of a Democratic one, an almost casual remark which must have made the good Senator from Connecticut gulp:

We must be very careful what we’re doing here, because in my opinion, three years in Iraq, things haven’t gone the way the administration said and others said it was going to go. In fact, I think we’re in more trouble today than we’ve ever been in Iraq...

Wolf's first guest was the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, being everything you'd expect a Danish Prime Minister to be, handsome, intelligent, measured, and as scintillating as a Hans Christian Lumbye polka.

PM Rasmussen mouthed all the correct words, the sacred twin freedoms of speech and the press; then again, no freedom sans responsibility; no, no, Danes don't see this as a clash of civilizations; no, no, no, Danes aren't reluctant to welcome immigrants, and yes, there does seem to have been an over reaction on the part of Muslims around the world.

Next, Wolf ushered on the matched set of Senators, though Hagel was to prove himself a good deal less tweedle-de-dum, both Senators gave a pretty good imitation of the Tweedle twins in responding to the "cartoon uproar."

Both were all in favor of our western freedoms, and of responsibility in their use, in these "combustible times," as Hagel put it. Both roundly criticized those who would seek to fan the flames of Muslim outrage, like say, Syria and Iran, special emphasis on Iran's naughty role here from Lieberman, along with the smug observation that in the face of similarly outrageous cartoons aimed at Jews or Christians, neither riots nor violence ensued. No one thought to point out, of course, how difficult it is to think of a recent instance of a Christian or otherwise Western country being invaded by a Muslim one. Indeed, what was totally lacking from these two hours, as from almost every other discussion of this subject I've listened to, any impulse to ask what would seem like an obvious question: is there a relationship between the stunning eruption of deadly fury anger by Muslims we've seen displayed around the world, and the response of the Bush administration to 9/11, i.e., their version of the War On Terror?

In fact, Lieberman went in the opposite direction:

It should tell us a few things. One is that the war against terrorism is a world war, that the worldwide reaction stimulated by the extremists leading to a point of people shouting, "behead the cartoonist, death to America" -- America had nothing to do with it. In fact, our president and secretary of state condemned the cartoon as offensive -- reminds us this is a world war.

I want to say one other word. We have said, and I believe we're right, that this war against terrorism is mostly being fought out within the Muslim world. And the question is to strengthen the moderate voices. Where are the moderate voices? (all quotes are from my notes, no transcript being available yet)

Lieberman did point to a few such voices, and rightly lauded the Muslim-American community for it's loyalty to American values, even while many were appalled by the cartoons themselves.

And speaking of Iran, Wolf wondered if the "use of force," was "on the table." While acknowledging such is always the case in like situations, Senator Hagel came down hard on the side of caution:

But I think we are a long, long way -- I hope we are a long way from seriously considering a military option, because I don't think it would result in the objective here.

While acknowledging the genuine threat a nuclear Iran would pose not merely to us, but to much of the rest of the world, and praising the administration for it's willingness to work with other countries for a change, and through international channels, lest the administration has any notion that the run-up to the Iraqi invasion is a model for gaining acceptance for the use of a military option, Hagel made it clear, he won't be on board.

It may well be that the United States is going to have to find some way to engage the Iranians off channel. That doesn't mean negotiate. That doesn't mean diplomatically recognize them.

But if we are to get to the core of the issue here, the Iranians are surrounded by, in their minds -- reverse the optics for a minute. When you're talking with people you always have to -- Israel with nuclear capacity, the Paks, the Indians. And sure, they're going to have some sense of their own national security interest. I'm not defending that. And I found it very interesting today, too, and we need to be careful with this and work with those inside Iran on this issue.

Former President Rafsanjani, the former speaker of the parliament, said some things today -- yesterday about everybody calm down here, let's talk this through. That's the more responsible way to do it. And I think some incentives within the framework of how we deal with Iran is the way we will get to the objective.

Blitzer immediately pointed out that Rafsanjani wasn't elected, music to Senator Lieberman's ears. Again, no one ventured to ask what pressures brought to bear by us might have contributed to the election of President Ahmadinejad, but Joe took as his text, the extreme nature of Iran's new President - this man's presence in Iran makes it "another front in our war against radical Islamist terrorism, because Ahmadinejad has proclaimed himself, in some sense, the leader of those forces."

Going to be interesting to see how, with the help of Lieberman, the administration is going to be able to paint a duly elected President of a country which is acting strictly within its own borders as a terrorist and his country, a terrorist state, but I don't doubt they'll find a way.

Any doubts you might have had that Lieberman has learned absolutely nothing from our experience in Iraq, you can set aside:

And yes, I agree with John McCain, in the last analysis, if we're that serious about the danger that Iran with nuclear weapons poses to the rest of the world, and most particularly to us, the United States of America, we've got to leave the military option on the table.

Think it's fair to say that John McCain isn't exactly a quick learner, either.

It was in the context of Iran that Hagel made his headline-worthy statement about Iraq, when Wolf asked Hagel if he was sure that our intelligence agencies had it right about Iran's nuclear program.

I go back to the conversation we just had here, the three of us, over the last five minutes, about Iran. We must be very careful what we're doing here, because, in my opinion, three years in Iraq, things haven't gone the way the administration said, and others said, it was going to go. In fact, I think we're in more trouble today than we've ever been in Iraq, and that limits our options in Iran, it limits our foreign policy options everywhere.

We need to think through where we're going. We need to think through consequences. We talk about sanctions. Well, sanctions, that's fine. Where would that lead? Where would that go? We've got to bore down here a little bit more in our thoughtful analysis.

Intelligence is a very key part of that. But it's imperfect. We don't have all the pieces. One of the -- I think one of the results of us having no relationship with Iran, when all of our allies do, is that the intelligence we get is pretty much third-hand. We don't have any presence in Iran.

To sum up: Chuck Hagel thinks the last thing we ought to be thinking about is doing anything with a military option but leave it on the table, while Senator Lieberman is forging yet another test of foreign policy seriousness by daring America to be unafraid of an option that will probably result in a 100 years war with a billion Muslims. Good one, Joe.

If the subject of intelligence is raised, can the issue of those NSA warrantless wiretaps be far behind? Give Wolf limited credit, he did use the word "warrantless," but he didn't use the word "domestic," although he did use the word, "surveillence." Once. Come on, you couldn't seriously have thought he was going to put the two together?

Here's the context: Hagel is the cover story on the NYTimes magazine this Sunday, which provided the explicit set-up for Wolf to pair off Hagel and Lieberman as Senators who remain stubbornly independent of their parties.

Hagel was a good deal more impressive here than Lieberman, making the point that, though a Republican, his first responsibility is to his constituents, the country as a whole, and to the constitution. Lieberman, presented with that loathsome statement he made about Democrats needing to accept the fact that Bush is president for the next three years, made a meaningless distinction between being critical for partisan reasons, which is bad, and being responsible and non-partisan, which seems to mean, one simply doesn't criticize the President, especially not on his foreign policy.

Which led Wolf to the NSA:

BLITZER: Are you on board with the president's decision to go ahead and authorize these warrantless wiretaps without getting any congressional authority?

HAGEL: Quick answer is no. We have a law on the books. It has worked. But more to the point, we are a nation that not only respects our laws, but we are a nation rooted in law. And that foundation has been built by the Constitution of the United States.

For over 200 years, we've protected civil liberties of Americans and our national security interests. We can do both. We have done both.

I think we need to accommodate, at a time when technology has changed, threats have changed, a new way to respond to these threats.

edit

But any president can't just unilaterally, arbitrarily say, We believe we have the authority and the power, and you go around a law that has worked very well.

Interestingly, Wolf didn't ask Leiberman his view, and the Democratic Senator (I have to remind myself) didn't indicate he had anything to say on the matter.

Katrina and her discontents rounded out the Senatorial portion of the program; quoting from a Wa Po article that states a Republican report is about to come out which says Michael Chertoff was detached from what was going on, and that the White House failed to engage the President in what was going on - the quote didn't make much more sense than that, Wolf then asked Lieberman if his Senate committee investigation will show the same thing, to which Lieberman was only too happy to say that yes, that is exactly what he and Senator Collins are finding.

The rest was a perfect example of Lieberman's conception of not being partisan, which seems to translate into an almost automatic need to exempt the President from any responsibility for his own administration's actions, i.e., after a long list of the failures of the administration in responding to a predicted disaster, Lieberman's final conclusion was this:

I'll tell you, the president ought to be outraged. This -- our whole apparatus failed to protect the people of New Orleans. And next time, God forbid, it could be a terrorist attack, and there's not going to be a warning from the weather service.

We got a lot to do, and we better do it together and quickly.

Couldn't agree more, Joe, but I wonder how you've managed not to notice that this White House has no desire to work together, not with anyone who isn't already in their pocket.

2nd hour had Allawi talking about Iraq, and three Middle East Ambassadors; summary to follow.