Like a lot of people I know, I'd come to a point where I thought that there were no people in government you could possible look up to - that government had been reduced to charisma and soundbite instead of substance and statesmanship. But I'm wrong, it seems, and glad to be.

There are two men in the US senate who stand out as being of that statesmanship cast.

First we have Joseph Biden, who in an interview on NBC News this morning was asked about whether Iran was set to be the next country in line for a "regime change". His response was that the coalition has not yet won the fight in Afghanistan, has not yet won in Iraq - NBC, he pointed out, had just shown a five minute feature talking about the difficulties in changing the role and percerption of the Iraqi police force - talking about regime change in Iran, who have turned over more known terrorists than any other Middle Eastern nation, was not something he thought anyone should be talking about right now.

But who's Biden to say that? Well, he's the ranking member of the Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee. Which just means he's served on it longer than anyone else. He's one of the few people talking sense about the role of the west in democratizing the Middle East. And he was one of the few Senators to suggest that a second UN Resolution on the consequences of finding WMD in Iraq would work. And now it appears obvious why the Bush Administration was so opposed to military action being dependent on the discovery of nuclear and biological weapons in Iraq.

See a transcript of his appearance on Meet The Press (NBC) from Sunday morning here.

The second person is Senator Pete Dominici.

He was Ari Fleischer's employer between 1990 and 1994, and you have to wonder: How did Ari go from working for this admirable statesman to working for the arse-weasel he's most recently been employed by?

Anyhow - I'm just impressed that anyone gets it right anymore - and these guys seem to be able to bridge the gap between serving their state's local issues and serving the nation (and sometimes its President's loony ideas).