Dan from Gone Mild chides me below for having been "fooled" by a chopped up transcript of an interview with Congressman Dingell. While I didn't initially believe him, I have since come across a more complete transcript of the interview, both at one of my original sources (PowerLine) and über-Left site Think Progress. But I think there are some areas that need to be highlighted here -- areas that make it clear that the original quote was not that dramatic a misrepresentation of Dingell's position.

DINGELL: First of all, our problem is that we must be a fair and honest broker and a friend to all parties. The resolution didn’t make us that. We have to have the trust of both of the people of Israel and the people of the Arab countries around it, in order to help resolve the problem. If we don’t, the possibilities of regional war, calamitous situation with regard to Israel which has 5 million people amidst a billion and a half Arabs are a real potential for calamity. Having said at that, what we have to do is to see to it that finally we begin to address the problems that exist to abate the difficulties that are preventing a–a honest solution to the problem and a negotiated end. It takes–it takes a lot of work to get the trust that it takes to do this. The resolution did not instill that kind of trust and the end result would be quite frankly, the real solution to the problems that exist in the middle east would probably have been and probably will be put off.

ANCHOR: Overall majority of your colleagues didn’t see it that way and some would suggest that if–even though there are obviously a lot of issues with Lebanon and with Palestinian cause wrapped up in this, that this largely boils down to Israel against Hezbollah and Hezbollah is a group that the United States has deemed a terrorist organization, that there’s only one side for the Americans to come down on in this fight.

DINGELL: Well, we don’t, first of all, I don’t take sides for or against Hezbollah or for or against Israel.

ANCHOR: You’re not against Hezbollah?

DINGELL: No, I happen to be—I happen to be against violence, I think the United States has to bring resolution to this matter. Now, I condemn Hezbollah as does everybody else, for the violence, but I think if we’ve got to talk to them and if we don’t — if we don’t get ourselves in a position where we can talk to both sides and bring both sides together, the killing and the blood let is going to continue.

Now let's look at those highlighted sections. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. That is utterly beyond dispute. Their main stock-in-trade is violence. Yet despite is claim of opposition to the violence -- which has included the cold-blooded murder of American military personnel -- Dingell wants to treat Israel and Hezbollah as equals and find some middle ground. ABSURD!

And when asked if he is against Hezbollah -- a client of Syria and Iran which uses the intentional targetting of innocent civilians as a standard tactic -- Dingell clearly says that he is not. Oh, yeah, he says he opposes the violence, but he is apparently not opposed to the platform, which is the destruction of Israel.

PowerLine nails it.

If I have this right, Dingell's "actual view" is that the United States should be a friend of Hezbollah, though he condemns the organization for its "violence" even if he does not quite deem it a terrorist group. In other words, according to Rep. Dingell, the United States should serve as an "honest broker" between a murderer and the murderer's intended victim. Thanks to ThinkProgress for introducing the nuance necessary to appreciate Rep. Dingell's true view fully.

I guess I have a vision of Dingell and the ThinkProgress crowd coming upon a woman using a can of mace to defend herself from a would-be rapist and demanding that the woman drop the canister so two sit down and achieve a mutual understanding where they can both achieve their goals. The problem is that doing so in such a situation -- and in the case of Israel and Hezbollah -- means suspending all sense of justice and morality in order to materially cooperate with evil.

I repeat my earlier position on the issue -- one I feel is fully supported by the much longer transcript.

Utterly obscene!

And remember -- your vote for a Democrat Congressional candidate is a vote to make John Dingell Chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee -- which has a lot to do with setting our policies vis-a-vis the Middle East.

Assigning moral equivalency to the two sides in this conflict is unacceptable. Demanding that we be an "honest broker" with terrorist groups is a position which is beyond reprehensible -- but apparently acceptable in the Democrat Party and on the Left in general.