Updated: Sy Hersh v. Amy Goodman [VIDEO]

A friend wrote early this morning, outraged that: "the Democrats were completely spineless with Robert Gates today." Hearings are being held to determine whether Robert Gates will succeed Don Rumsfeld as Bush's Secretary of Defense.

Gates has, what anyone honest enough to look at the record would call, a dirty past. A key Iran-Contra figure and a negotiator involved in convincing Iran to keep the American hostages long enough to secure a Reagan victory over Carter, Gates was apparently also caught up in the sale of weapons to Iraq.

So clearly Gates has had a hand in arming the very people the administration is now spending lives, America's soul and our national treasure to fight.

But Gates is a Bush 41 man and not a Bush 43 man. In these waning days of the neocon coup when the 43s are painting targets on Iran, a 41-er with everything to lose may be the best hope we've got. (Gates did explicitly state, in yesterday's hearings, that "I think that the consequences of a military conflict with Iran could be quite dramatic." And he agreed that "an attack on either Iran or Syria would worsen the violence in Iraq and lead to greater American casualties.")

Seymour Hersh and Amy Goodman very gently butt heads in the Democracy Now! clip, upper right. Here's the controversial part, pitting realism against idealism...