Got a nice hand-written note from Joe Sestak, now Democratic representative of the 7th district of PA but formerly a Vice Admiral of the US Navy. He thanked me for the discussion with the roles and missions panel of the House Armed Services Committee week before last. Joe was always about the slickest admiral you'd ever meet. Few were surprised he went into politics or that he was immediately successful at it. A "political flag officer" to some (like Petraeus is often accused of being; I find these officers are exactly the ones who best see war within the context of everything else), but to me, it's hugely important to see former officers like Sestak or Geoff Davis of KY get into Congress. The low level of former officers in that body is a serious deficit, because Congress needs all the expertise it can get on this complex subject. I found it unsurprisingly that a recent MSM story on Petraeus' testimony quoted Sestak making the same point I did recently in a blog post: that it's a bit spooky to see the White House outsourcing leadership of the Iraq effort to a general, no matter how talented he is (i.e., the whole notion that Petraeus didn't vet his findings with the White House prior to testifying--like that would be something wrong!). It takes a former military to make that kind of point with confidence. I mean, it's not like Sestak would need to have his staffer hold up a blown-up photo of him with Petraeus in Iraq to prove his bona fides on the subject. People might assume a former mil guy would be a soft touch on the military, but the truth is, they tend to be the most usefully skeptical, meaning they can separate the wheat from the chaff instead of simply seeing everything as one or the other. As I've said earlier, I expect (like Kristol recently argued) to see a lot of great political leaders arise from the military in the post-9/11 paradigm. That'll give us a smarter Congress and--by extension--better presidencies.