A terrible thing

As a subject, Minnesota Senator Mark Dayton is Minnesota’s contribution to the psychiatric profession. As a politician, Dayton is the expressive form of the Democratic Party.
Yesterday we witnessed Dayton’s weirdly dissociated performance at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing with Secretary Rumsfeld. Dayton’s performance provides an unforgettable example of the phenomenon to which Dan Quayle was referring in his mangled version of the United Negro College Fund slogan: “What a terrible thing to have lost one’s mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is.”
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If you have not yet caught up with Dayton’s performance, please check out the transcript of the hearing. Ed Morrissey of Captain’s Quarters highlights and excerpts the Dayton disgrace in his post on the subject: “Minnesotans owe you an apology.” MSNBC has posted the video of the Dayton disgrace in its story on the hearing: “Rumsfeld apologizes to abused Iraqis.”
Morrissey quotes Dayton hectoring Rumsfeld:

You’re increasing the number of forces, the number of tanks over there. How can this have anything to do but to escalate the level of violence, the opposition of Iraqis, intensify the hatred across the Arab world to the United States, and more atrocities? How can this have any result other than to put us deeper into this situation and make the conditions there worse for our forces and for our nation and for the world?

What a terrible thing to have lost one’s mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is.

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