Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center got a kick out of watching Paul Begala’s plate-whirling spin on The Situation Room the other day on CNN. But it was an even more amusing performance when you start Googling the radical historian Begala touted on Iraq:

…[a]n obscure professor named Martin Van Creveld, whom he called “one of the most esteemed military historians in the world.” Quoting this learned professor, Begala proclaimed, “This is the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C. sent his legions into Germany and lost them.” (Unsurprisingly, James Carville used the very same professor, the very same quote the following morning on NBC’s “Today.”)
Begala claimed his good doctor had said it recently, but that wasn’t true: it was published in the Jewish newspaper The Forward in November. http://www.forward.com/articles/6936 That’s not all. Begala didn’t finish the sentence he’s quoting in that article, which is understandable since it would have given the audience the true flavor of this man’s thinking. It ends, “Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president’s men.”
And there’s more still. If you want a good look at what Begala and Carville’s new most esteemed historian in the world would have us do in Iraq, that comes earlier in the piece. He suggests our model is the fall of Saigon, a complete, abject withdrawal: “Clearly this is not a pleasant model to follow, but no other alternative appears in sight.”