RECORDING ALERT - AT 10:04 P.M. ET:  Before you read, please make a note to set your TV recorder.   You will not want to miss this:  John Kerry is about to hold major hearings on Afghanistan, reminiscent of the hearings on Vietnam at which he testified as an anti-war veteran.  Oh, the nostalgia.  Oh, the memories.  Oh, youth!

WASHINGTON — Sen. John F. Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says he will hold far-ranging oversight hearings on the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

“End of summer, early fall, we are going to take a hard look at Afghanistan,” Kerry said in an interview with GlobalPost.

I can't wait.

Kerry's proposal for hearings comes as just-deployed U.S. Marines undertake an ambitious and perilous offensive against the Taliban in the south, and as suicide bombings and roadside attacks on U.S. troops have escalated.

Our troops must love the fact that John Kerry is on the case, and will probably undercut their mission.

Between 1966 and 1971, the same committee Kerry chairs, then under Democratic chairman William Fulbright of Arkansas, played an important role in focusing concerns on President Lyndon Johnson’s flawed strategy during the Vietnam War. Kerry, then a 27-year-old decorated combat veteran of that war, rose to prominence as an anti-war leader with his testimony at the committee's hearings.

Now Kerry is in a key position to shape the direction of the war in Afghanistan.

Take a sleeping pill tonight.  Take two.  Maybe your spouse can knock you out with a mallet.

July 9, 2009