Yesterday I wrote about what easy marks Democratic lawmakers are. Let’s give some credit, though, where credit is due: Republicans ain’t bad at the hustlin’. Consider the case of the “unmanned drones” by which they unmanned Iraq war skeptics.

Dig this lowlight from the Congressional recess. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania’s 11th district related to constituents at a townhall meeting the saga of how he ended up voting for the war. Here’s the Pocono Record (incidentally scooping the New York Times and Washington Post):

Kanjorski described how, prior to the vote, he and several other representatives were ushered into the Roosevelt Room in the White House and given a 90-minute, highly classified briefing by then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and CIA Director George Tenant.

“They told us all kind of things. That we were under a threat and their information was as complete as possible and they (Iraq) had weapons of mass destruction” he said.

Kanjorski was not terribly impressed with the briefing. Within two hours he received a call from the White House, asking if he had any further questions. Kanjorski said he that to enter into a preemptive war, he had to be convinced the threat is imminent. And he wasn’t convinced.

So he was asked to return for another briefing the next morning.

In it, he was shown large pictures of a plane “that looked like a mosquito.” Kanjorski was told these were called UAVs — unmanned aeronautical vehicles, the highest black-box weapons we have, and they (the Iraqis) have 1,000 of them, and they can deliver weapons of mass destruction. That included a plane that could spray chemical and biological materials.

He was told the intelligence agency had incontrovertible evidence of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. “I’m a lawyer” he said. “Use the phrase ‘incontrovertible evidence’ and you’ve got my attention. It was impressive.”

Neat little pageant, huh? That’s not the half of it. According to another account, “President Bush wandered into and out of the briefing room.” And that Kanjorski then made a visit to John Murtha, who “‘turned white’ when told about the drones; Murtha, a former intelligence officer, believed that such information was classified.”

Yes: they’re good at what they do. Who’s the White House staffer, I’d like to know, whose job it is to signal the Presdient to “wander” into the briefing room at moments of key dramatic impact? Maybe these guys were involved.

So they put on a good show. But the audience, it strikes me, is as ready to be dazzled by stagecraft as the folks who pay $318.88 to see Celine Dion at Caesar’s Palace. I don’t know this Paul Kanjorski. Maybe he’s bee’s knees. But check out his if the Czar only knew explanation: “Kanjorski doesn’t believe the president or the national security adviser lied to him ‘because I believe they were lied to,’ he said.”

This is a twelve-term Congressman. How many times have presidents lied to him? How many times must this president lied to him? Yet his first instinct is: benefit of the doubt. Arghhhh!!!!!

Kanjorski, to his credit, didn’t vote for the Constitutional rape known as the “Protect America Act”—the authorization this August for the President to spy on whomever he wants without any oversight. But as we know, it passed because 41 Democrats did. What kind of secret performance whose these 41 Democrats treated to? Were their pictures? Mood lighting? Music? Exploding fireworks? Had the President “wandered into and out of the briefing room,” choreographed like Astaire and Rogers? If it failed to impress, were they treated to an encore?

Did they tell themselves: even George Bush wouldn’t play Chicken Little with so sacred a responsibility as this?

Will it take them, like Rep. Kanjorski, five years to admit they were unmanned once again?