From last night’s Special Report with Brit Hume:

—On Harry Reid and Iraq—

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: This is a classic definition of a gaffe. The definition of a gaffe in Washington is when a politician accidentally says what’s in his heart, because it’s a rare occasion and obviously, the fact that Reid had to go out on the floor of the Senate and then restate it in a different way is an example of how he knew he’d made a gaffe.
He went out on the floor and said, no, I didn’t say it was lost. In fact, he did. He not only said it was lost, but in that clip that we saw he said the secretary of state, secretary of defense know it’s lost as well. Then he goes out on the floor and says, no, it’s only lost if we follow the policy of the president. It’s not if you follow mine.
Now, if you parse that, what he means is if we continue with the surge, which is a new strategy of counterinsurgency and a new way to approach the war, we are lost. But, if you do what I’m recommending, which is to abandon the war and to leave the field of battle . . . we’re going to win. Now, this is so illogical that it’s obvious that he’s not sure what he wants to say, but he knows that admitting it’s lost, as we said here earlier, is politically disastrous. Because American people have worries about the war, but saying it’s lost is only a minority opinion and many people do not want what follows logically, which is abandoning the field of battle.

—On the Attorney General’s Hearings—

KRAUTHAMMER: And he didn’t — the attorney general did not do well today. I mean, it was his one chance to defend himself, and he can’t quite explain how, on the one hand, as he said earlier, he was out of the loop in firing, and in fact, it looks as if he wasn’t even aware of the reason why he fired two of the eight . . .
He never explained it and it’s not explainable. It’s really a question of confidence. I do think, though, that the Democratic attempt to pretend that there is mounting evidence of improper activity here, I mean, there is shrinking evidence, if anything, and they try to say that the fact that he spoke with the president and with Rove about these attorneys is somehow improper. It’s ridiculous. Of course the White House would have to have a say. . . .
HUME: Well, I suppose it’s not the strongest thing to say: Stick with Al Gonzales, he’s not improper, he’s just incompetent.
KRAUTHAMMER: That’s exactly what his defense is.