Y’know, when I started this column, I didn’t expect to be awarding these little “moments of the week” to people with whom I actually agreed with on anything. Yet that’s exactly what the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) managed to do this week, issuing a press release that suggested General Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, “put her [Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi] in her place.”

This isn’t about whether Nancy Pelosi needs to be shut up; my own thoughts on the Speaker of the House aren’t very different from my thoughts on her two immediate predecessors, and any time I see a military commander verbally smacking down a holder of a high political office I swear all I see is rainbows and sunshine. No, really.

Enough of that — the reason I’m awarding the NRCC the week is that this newfound respect for military thinking is too little, too late. During the build-up to the Iraq War, the invasion of Iraq, the hunt for WMDs, the hunt for Saddam Hussein, the Abu Ghraib scandal, the Gitmo scandal, the formation of a new government — during this entire process, Army generals like Eric Shinseki, Paul Eaton, Charles Swannack, John Riggs, John Batiste and Marine generals like Paul Van Riper and Gregory Newbold at different points communicated to the Department of Defense and the United States Congress about what they felt would be necessary to conduct a global war on terrorism. Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz retaliated by ignoring their dissent, making light of their comments, making light of the generals themselves, or, if it came to it, going after their careers for failing to toe the administration’s line.

So, NRCC, from whence doth this come? Does it take being in the minority that made you start trusting expert judgment?