Shooting at a Tank

I would have thought that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would have known that old soldiers’ joke:  “Don’t shoot at a tank;  you’ll only make it mad.”  If ever there were the moral equivalent of a tank (perhaps even a Iosif Stalin tank) in our political midst, it would be the Republicans in the Senate chamber.  Getting them just to approve debate of the strategic arms limitation treaty with Russia (START) must have involved Herculean efforts on the part of Majority Leader Harry Reid.  For Lavrov to send a message that the terms of the treaty "cannot be reopened, becoming the subject of new negotiations" (as was just reported on the BBC News Web site) will just encourage those like Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl to tinker the document to death.  This is what happens when political gain trumps larger issues of “homeland security;”  and, to be fair, both Lavrov and Kyl now deserve to find lumps of coal in the Christmas stockings!