Lugar a true public servant

A savvy politician would never raise tough issues and voice strong criticism of a presidential administration during a presidential campaign when he’s a member of the president’s own party.

Which just goes to prove that Richard Lugar isn’t a politician.

He’s a public servant.

As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the senior senator from Indiana takes his job seriously. And he’s not about to let something like politics get in the way.

This week — in tones of frustration and incredulity — Sen. Lugar repeated his critique of the Bush administration’s failures to plan for post-war Iraq. It was a song he has sung before, dating back to well before the war was launched.

Sen. Lugar was among those who asked the right questions months before the war began, making it clear he had no doubt about the American military’s ability to win the conflict but expressing serious misgivings about what would come after Saddam Hussein was removed from power.

He asked the right questions, but he didn’t get much in the way of answers.

The “dancing in the street” crowd, as Sen. Lugar calls the neo-conservative folks steering U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, told the Senate in those pre-war days not to worry. The U.S. would move in, Saddam would be removed, American troops would be met with open arms, democracy would be installed as easily as a set of batteries, and we’d head for home.

It was nonsense then, and it’s embarrassing nonsense now, as Sen. Lugar noted this week.

Chances are, Sen. Lugar’s strong words and unrelenting candor didn’t win him many friends at the White House this week, particularly among Karl Rove’s circle of political operatives. But if we know Dick Lugar, he doesn’t care what the political operatives think. They’re not the ones he works for.

We are. — J.R.[[In-content Ad]]