Chas Freeman’s In

Ben Smith reports that congress has been officially notified that Chas Freeman now chairs the National Intelligence Committee, thus indicating that the effort by Israel hawks to spike his nomination has definitively failed.

I doubt Freeman will be making any particularly crucial contributions to Israel policy. But, like the brushoff of the earlier, less-vigorous, campaign against George Mitchell, it’s an indication of where the administration’s head is politically—not that scared of Steve Rosen and Marty Peretz.