Here we are now, entertain us

By the way, the best entertainment on TV right now cannot be found on any of the major networks.

It is C-SPAN.

PSP should stand for "Post-Saddam Politics".

I encourage all of you to check out yesterday's Senate Foreign Relations Hearing here (launches RealPlayer). As Peter Grier of the Christian Science Monitor points out, no fewer than seven members of this panel have presidential aspirations, most of them Democrats. The topic: a new strategy in Iraq. The person taking questions: Condoleezza Rice.

You can't ask for a better powder keg than that. Watch Condoleezza's face as Joe Biden (D - Delaware) lets fly the opening salvo. There's fire burning underneath that glare.

UPDATE (2:30 pm, 1/14): Wow, okay, even I underestimated how big this hearing was. You can't turn on the radio or TV -- get off the reality show opiates! -- without hearing about the hearing, a.k.a. HATH. Like a good book, the hearing reveals more the more times you view it. Here are some highlights (with time points provided by yours truly):

0:59:00: Watch a heckler get dragged out on his heels by the Capitol Police as he screams "Stop the lies!" Chuck Hagel (R - Nebraska) makes snappy use of the distraction.

1:05:30: Minutes later Chuck Hagel's words take a caustic turn as he calls the surge "the most dangerous foreign-policy blunder in this country since Vietnam". The crowd breaks into applause.

1:45:30: The thing that's really got the blogosphere on fire, though, is the statement by Barbara Boxer, Democrat from California (love those feisty California Democrat women). Talking about the human cost of decisions in Iraq, she tells Condoleezza: "You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family."

Yeow! Oh no she didn't. Oh yes she did. Watch Condi's eyebrows.

The blogosphere goes crazy. Right-wingers find themselves in the awkward position of defending single people and women. ("Umm, what do we say now? 9/11! War is peace!") The left, including Boxer herself, claims her words are being taken out of context. The British perspective on all this might be best.

To me the offense is just in telling someone, "You're going to die alone." Clear away all of the bulls**t rhetoric in the blogosphere, and you'll find that that is the heart of the sentiment no one wants to hear. Even if it's true.