And why not? Not only was Barack Obama himself insisting we withdraw before the situation improved, leaving the Iraqis to certain death, but he claimed that the surge would make the situation worse. Of course, his political advisers would later insist that he never said such a thing, but any chimp with internet access can dig up video of him doing just that.

So are we surprised when he makes Rep. Nancy Boyda of Kansas, a woman so opposed to good news from Iraq that she once walked out of the House in the middle of a hearing, a deputy secretary of defense?

Former U.S. Rep. Nancy Boyda has started a new job at the Pentagon.

Boyda was sworn in Monday as a deputy assistant secretary of defense for manpower and personnel issues.

Michelle Malkin links to this report from back in 2007:

Kansas Rep. Nancy Boyda is defending her decision to step out of a hearing room last week while a retired Army general testified about U.S. progress in Iraq.

But Republicans on Monday accused Boyda of refusing to listen to the positive aspects of the Bush administration’s new Iraq strategy.

Boyda, a freshman Democrat from Topeka, said she left the House Armed Services Committee hearing on Friday for about 10 minutes during the testimony of retired Gen. Jack Keane.

“There was only so much that you could take until we in fact had to leave the room for a while,” Boyda said after she returned, according to a transcript of the hearing. “So I think I am back and maybe can articulate some things – after so much of the frustration of having to listen to what we listened to.”

Keane had testified that since the troop surge began, U.S. forces “are on the offensive and we have the momentum.” He also said that security has improved in every neighborhood and district in and around Baghdad, and that “cafes, pool halls, coffee houses that I visited are full of people.”

When Boyda returned to the hearing, she ridiculed Keane’s description of Iraq “as in some way or another that it’s a place that I might take the family for a vacation – things are going so well – those kinds of comments will in fact show up in the media and further divide this country instead of saying, ‘Here’s the reality of the problem.’”

Not only was Boyda proven wrong about the situation in Iraq, but she demonstrated that she was so opposed to hearing even the simplest of good news that she’d walk out of a hearing. She was that dedicated to America losing its war against the insurgency.

By the way, she was also known to show up at radical leftist anti-war rallies held by groups such as ANSWER. And now she’s been put in charge of manpower and personnel issues in the fricken Pentagon.

Nothing this administration does surprises me anymore. I wouldn’t be shocked to wake up and discover Jane Fonda in charge of the Department of Veterans Affairs. It’d just be par for the course.