Richard Lugar's "Defection"

A lot of folks--Dan Froomkin, The Post, The Chronicle, The Times--are making a lot of Richard Lugar's "defection" from the Republicans over the Iraq war because of his speech yesterday in the Senate.

No offense, but all you people are fooling yourselves if you think it means a damn thing.

Lugar spoke out "forcefully" before, too: right before he voted for the Iraq funding bill a couple of weeks ago. In other words, he's perfectly happy to sound tough, but when it comes to actually doing something, he wimps out.

So I think Tony Snow, in the White House press "gaggle" (a profoundly stupid word for the daily press gathering that reduces the status of the White House press corps to the equivalent of geese) was absolutely right to literally shrug off Lugar's comments. Until Lugar actually gets off his bloviating duff and submits a vote that actually counts, I think we can all safely assume that Snow is right to not take Lugar's words into account. After all, the Republicans, led but such stalwart all-talk-and-no-action weenies like Arlen Specter, have been doing this regularly for the last six years.

Personally, I think Dana Millbank of the Post--who was on Keith Olbermann's show last night--has the right idea; believe it when you see Lugar actually do something, and not just talk.