John Nagl, president of the Center for a New American Security: “An Afghan state able to secure itself against internal threat with minimal external help”; one that “does not serve as a … base for attacks on its neighbors”; and which is “opposed to the interests of al-Qaeda worldwide.”

Steve Biddle, military analyst with the Brookings Institution: “We need only a country sufficiently in control of its territory that large contiguous blocs of Afghanistan cannot be used as a base for attacking others.”

Rory Stewart, head of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard: An “Afghanistan [that] does not in any way pose a majorly increased threat to the U.S.”

Now, The Center for Public Integrity has done some digging to discover that the same three lawmakers have all taken money from Specter as well. CPI is wondering if they’ll be giving that money back.

What do these three have in common, aside from their anger at their Pennsylvania colleague? All three received contributions from Specter’s Big Tent PAC: $5,000 for Cornyn in 2002, $10,000 for Corker in 2006, and $10,000 for Alexander in 2008. Cornyn’s National Republican Senatorial Committee, the national campaign committee that works to elect and re-elect Republicans to the Senate, also received $15,000 from the PAC in the 2006 cycle.

We called the offices of all three Senators to ask whether they would be returning Specter’s funds after asking that their own contributions be returned. A spokesman for Senator Alexander said they had no plans to return the money, “because Senator Specter has not asked for it back and Senator Alexander welcomes money from Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike.” He declined to speculate on what would happen if Specter did make such a counter-request. Calls to Corker’s and Cornyn’s were not returned, but Cornyn previously called Specter’s party-switch the “height of political self-preservation.”

For CPI’s self-preservation, they shouldn’t hold their breath for those call-backs.

Isakson even introduced the first lighthearted moment of the hearing. He says he met with Hill in his office last week and got a response on “the only question I needed an answer to,” which is how Hill will follow up Ryan Crocker’s tenure as U.S. ambassador to Iraq. “I just don’t want to screw it up,” Hill replied.

Clinton picks up on it. “In consultation with the president-elect, the vice president-elect and the members of this committee” she decided to fill a long-vacant post, the deputy secretary for resources and management. “Because you get consumed by the crises of the moment.” So Jack Lew will take that post. “I want you, as well as me, to have someone who is accountable and a point person.” It’s important that the argument not “stop” with the prospect of training diplomats — “we’ve got to have someone who will take charge of those issues … Putting the State Department on a sounder financial and management position.” He’ll have the portfolio to “take a look at what works, what doesn’t work, to eliminate redundancies and fill gaps,” particularly in U.S. development efforts, “which are often the way we are perceived” around the world.

The Massachusetts Democrat framed the debate as a something akin to class warfare. Why, Frank wondered, would the White House rush to help Wall Street with $700 billion but so adamantly resist diverting a fraction of that amount to the country’s largest manufacturers?

Well, AIG, which I don’t think anyone would think was as important to the American economy as the auto industry … got $40 billion just now to make it up over $100 billion. To some extent, let’s not have a white-collar/blue-collar bias in our public policy…I don’t want to set a precedent that bankruptcy now is a way in which you undo what gains unions have been able to hold on to.

Frank went on to describe the conditions of his version of the Detroit bailout bill (which differs from the Senate plan), including restrictions on executive pay and a dividend moratorium for the Big Three. The companies would also have to present the government with a new business model for creating more fuel-efficient vehicles. More money, Frank said, could follow.

If, on Mar. 31, the president does not believe that this is going to get them the viability with energy efficiency cars, they have to repay the loan; they get no more money. If they can show by Mar. 31 a plausible way to go forward, then we would consider giving more money, again, under equally stringent conditions.

We heard inklings of this message yesterday in the Senate Banking Committee, where Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), another supporter of an automaker bailout, told the Big Three executives that he’s under no illusions about the eventual size of the bailout they’ll need. “I suspect,” Dodd said, “that this $25 billion is not going to be the end of it.” (These three executives are testifying before Frank’s House panel as we speak.)

The issue has been at the forefront of GOP opposition to the plan. Republicans, already wary of the degree to which Washington has intervened in the private marketplace this year, think the Detroit bailout plan represents nothing more than throwing good money after bad. They think the Big Three are destined to fail due to poor management decisions, and wonder why lawmakers would waste taxpayer money to delay the inevitable.

During yesterday’s Senate hearing, one testy exchange between GOP Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.) and General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner summarized the Republicans’ mood:

Corker: “Would you all make the pledge that if you get the $25 billion, you’ll never be back to see us again?”

Wagoner: “Sir, if you could make the pledge to us that the U.S. economy will turn around on a certain point in time, then — and the financial markets will rejuvenate, then we would be glad, based on that data, to come back to you and give you … our exact best estimate of how much financing we think we need, sir. We’d be very glad to do that.”

Corker: “You’re going to be back, aren’t you?”

But, in the middle of this financial mess, many economists are warning that the economic ripples of a Detroit failure would decimate businesses and communities far beyond Michigan.

Soon we’ll be running a longer piece detailing the reasons that the bailout option might prove far less costly for taxpayers than allowing the companies to go under.