A WACKALOON WITH A (ONCE-)POWERFUL FRIEND

Frank Gaffney was on Hardball yesterday debating (and insulting) Ron Reagan, son of the former president, who doesn't share Gaffney's neocon views on Afghanistan. ("Your father would be ashamed of you," Gaffney said.) Steve Benen has a very good post listing some of Gaffney's loonier notions -- birtherism, suspicion that Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim, the belief that Saddam was involved in both World Trade Center attacks -- but I want to add one more point.

Gaffney is also the founder and president of the Center for Security Policy. That organization just gave Dick Cheney its annual "Keeper of the Flame Award" ("to recognize those individuals who have enhanced American security through their commitment to a strong military, the propagation of democracy and respect for individual rights throughout the world"), and in fact, the Cheney speech you've been hearing about this week, the one in which he accuses Barack Obama of "dithering" on Afghanistan, was the acceptance speech for that award.

So Gaffney's a lunatic, but he's a well-connected lunatic.