May 16, 2007 8:30 AM

A New Sane Voice in a Wacked-Out Administration

George Bush just appointed Lt. General Douglas Lute for the newly created position of War Czar. Despite the bellicose moniker he now bears, Gen. Lute may inject some desperately needed common sense into an otherwise cuckoo administration.

In 2005, when he was Director of Operations for CENTCOM and in charge of overseeing combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Lute said this to the Financial Times:

We believe at some point, in order to break this dependence on the . . . coalition, you simply have to back off and let the Iraqis step forward. You have to undercut the perception of occupation in Iraq. It's very difficult to do that when you have 150,000-plus, largely western, foreign troops occupying the country.

Let's hope he hasn't changed his mind since then. Looks like Mr. Bush forgot to do his homework before choosing his new War Czar. That may be bad news for the president's "stay the course" plan for endless occupation, but it's good news for the rest of us.