Rumsfeld skewered by former fans, then braised and served on a bed of rice

[shereads]

This would be delicious, if it didn't come too late to save thousands of lives and $200 billion.

Why would the right wing, beginning with John McCain, begin to question Rumsfeld's competence now? Any theories?

Open Season on Rummy?
Thursday, Dec 16, 2004; 6:39 AM

If Don Rumsfeld has lost Bill Kristol, he's losing his conservative base.

Kristol, after all, is a leading foreign-policy hawk. Editor of the Weekly Standard and Fox talking head. Former Republican strategist and White House chief of staff for Dan Quayle. Major backer of the war in Iraq.

Which is why the town is buzzing about Kristol's Washington Post op-ed yesterday, in which he called for Rummy to be thrown overboard.

Not that Rumsfeld should be worried about his job. The only man who counts wants him to remain at the Pentagon. But this has gone beyond predictable potshots from Democrats and liberals. Now some visible figures on the right have had enough of Rumsfeld--a far cry from the days when his press sessions were regularly televised and he was depicted as a rock star.

The Kristol blast comes days after his friend John McCain said he had "no confidence" in the Secretary of Defense. And the turning point seems to have been Rumsfeld's dismissive-sounding "you go to war with the Army you have" response to that question in Kuwait from a Tennessee guardsman worried about inadequately armored vehicles. (Yes, the question was planted by a Chattanooga reporter, but the emotion of the soldiers in that room was real, and had Rumsfeld managed a more convincing and sympathetic answer, the story wouldn't have had legs.)

The sight of Colin Powell and so many other Cabinet members being jettisoned has also prompted critics to ask why the Pentagon chief gets to stay, given his insistence on a smaller invading force for Iraq whose consequences we see every day.

If other voices on the right join Kristol and McCain, look for journalists to start attaching the word "embattled" to Rumsfeld's name.

Here's what Kristol wrote after citing Rummy's comment that you don't have "the Army you want or wish to have at a later time":

"Actually, we have a pretty terrific Army. It's performed a lot better in this war than the secretary of defense has. President Bush has nonetheless decided to stick for now with the defense secretary we have, perhaps because he doesn't want to make a change until after the Jan. 30 Iraqi elections. But surely Don Rumsfeld is not the defense secretary Bush should want to have for the remainder of his second term.

"Contrast the magnificent performance of our soldiers with the arrogant buck-passing of Rumsfeld. . . .

"Perhaps Rumsfeld simply had a bad day. But then, what about his statement earlier last week, when asked about troop levels? 'The big debate about the number of troops is one of those things that's really out of my control.' Really? Well, 'the number of troops we had for the invasion was the number of troops that General Franks and General Abizaid wanted.'

"Leave aside the fact that the issue is not 'the number of troops we had for the invasion' but rather the number of troops we have had for postwar stabilization. Leave aside the fact that Gen. Tommy Franks had projected that he would need a quarter-million troops on the ground for that task -- and that his civilian superiors had mistakenly promised him that tens of thousands of international troops would be available. Leave aside the fact that Rumsfeld has only grudgingly and belatedly been willing to adjust even a little bit to realities on the ground since April 2003. And leave aside the fact that if our generals have been under pressure not to request more troops in Iraq for fear of stretching the military too thin, this is a consequence of Rumsfeld's refusal to increase the size of the military after Sept. 11.

"In any case, decisions on troop levels in the American system of government are not made by any general or set of generals but by the civilian leadership of the war effort."

That would include the president whom Kristol supported, no?

Andrew Sullivan seconds that emotion:

"It reads at times like the arguments on this blog. The most effective argument is about Rumsfeld's absolute refusal to take responsibility for any of his own errors, and his instinct, when in trouble, to blame others. This is not straight-talking; it's buck-passing. And, of course, Kristol's points about insufficient manpower for the post-invasion period remains blindingly obvious - except, of course, to the people running this war.

"Check out this simple statistic from one of the official reports on Abu Ghraib: at one point, General Sanchez had only 495 of the 1400 staffers he needed. There were 92 military police guards for 7,000 prisoners in Abu Ghraib. The responsibility for the consequences of that under-manning lies with Rumsfeld and the president. It's a responsibility they still both refuse to take. And by reappointing Rumsfeld and anointing Bremer and Tenet, Bush has just told his critics to pull a Cheney. I think the stakes in Iraq are too great for this kind of petty intransigence. But that's the president we have."

On National Review's "The Corner," Mark Levin has a contrary view:

"Kristol's piece is unimpressive. . . . At no time does Kristol, or his Senate friends McCain and Hagel, explain where the additional troops will come from. It's very odd that those who supported the war from day one now complain about troop strength, when surely they knew at the time that we didn't have another 100,000 to 150,000 troops to deploy to Iraq. And, as numerous experts have pointed out, exactly what would these troops do there? Create more targets for the terrorists who attack our convoys, I suppose."

Arianna Huffington sees it this way: "Iraq is Bush's signature offering to the world -- and firing Rummy would be like McDonald's deciding to pull the Big Mac off its menu. Instead, the president continues to operate in a fog of denial, serving up rosy assessments of the mayhem he has unleashed."

 

[~hellbaby~]

This would be delicious, if it didn't come too late to save thousands of lives and $200 billion.

Why would the right wing, beginning with John McCain, begin to question Rumsfeld's competence now? Any theories?

McCain has voiced his dislike of Rummy's actions for quite a while, of the whole group of the war instigators and planners.I hope he runs in '08 I'm a Dem. but he'd have my vote.
As for the menu, can we have Bush Flambe for dessert served with Cheney ala mode?

 

[rgraham666]

Rumsfeld et al. are the epitome of the modern rational man.

When there is a difference between their perfect rational plans and reality, reality is the one at fault.

They believe, as so many do, that their power requires them to be right all the time. If they were ever wrong says their belief, they would have no right to power.

And as their history shows, they will do anything to hold on to their power.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

As a Democratic response, I'll say that Rumsfeld is the model of the irrational man. The sort who chooses personal preference over reason, and does so for power or comfort or happiness instead of sacrificing these things for a greater good.

Of course I say that without having the least notion of what his actual motives are for the things he's done or decided, having a skepticism about press in general.

 

[LadyJeanne]

I'm hoping it's just a sign of more to come - divide and conquer from within!

 

[shereads]

Re: Re: Rumsfeld skewered by former fans, then braised and served on a bed of rice

McCain has voiced his dislike of Rummy's actions for quite a while, of the whole group of the war instigators and planners.I hope he runs in '08 I'm a Dem. but he'd have my vote.

A few months ago, I'd have agreed with you. But he lost me when he embraced GWB onstage during a campaign rally and called him "a man of great moral courage," at the height of the Swift Boats character-assassination campaign directed at McCain's friend - and so reminiscent of the vicious campaign against McCain himself during the 2000 primaries.

It makes no sense for John McCain to blame Donald Rumsfeld for the catastrophe in Iraq while supporting the man who put Rumsfeld in power, took Rumsfeld's side against Colin Powell at every turn, lacked the courage to admit that Powell was right all along, and continues to support Rumsfeld no matter how clear it becomes that Rumsfeld was disastrously wrong. So I wonder what the game is.

It can't be concern about what Rumsfeld's leadership is doing in Iraq. The time to care about that was when Rumsfeld's power base was vulnerable, before McCain himself helped seal their victory.

McCain turned down the opportunity to get rid of Rumsfeld, and more significantly, to rid us of the people who gave us Rumsfeld; the chance to have some real influence in Iraq; and to heal the bitter rift in this country. If he had agreed to run as VP on a two-party ticked, everybody would have won something important, except for the neocons who got us into this mess. I'd have welcomed McCain as a hero even though he's an enemy of abortion rights, and of the environment, two issues that I feel passionately about. This election was that important.

When he turned Kerry down, I was disappointed but I could understand his reluctance to cross party lines.

But when he hugged George W. Bush, I felt embarrassed for McCain and sick for the rest of us. He virtually assured the man's reelection by cloaking Bush's hypocrisy with his own credibility as a Vietnam veteran. He embraced and praised the moral courage of a man who made a mockery of Vietnam veterans, with his posturing on the aircraft carrier and his support-the-troops speeches while his party was working to destroy Max Cleland.

I wish I knew what McCain was promised in exchange for his soul, and why he learned nothing from watching Colin Powell go down in flames after he did the same thing. He doesn't earn back one iota of credibility by pretending that Bush/Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld haven't been in lock-step agreement on every fatal fuck-up.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

White House analysts have finally located a well-disguised location!

 

[Guest]

Mmmm, no thanks.

(I had right-wing weasel for lunch.)

 

[shereads]

Re: Re: Rumsfeld skewered by former fans, then braised and served on a bed of rice

Mmmm, no thanks.

(I had right-wing weasel for lunch.)

You ate the Christmas WEASEL?!?

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

...(I had right-wing weasel for lunch.)

Should of gone for the whole orange-glazed weasel.

A little harder to choke down, but much better as a well-balanced diet.











Edited to add: Wait until tomorrow, and then Poop Goes The Weasel!

 

[Guest]

Re: Re: Re: Rumsfeld skewered by former fans, then braised and served on a bed of ric

You ate the Christmas WEASEL?!?

http://www.addis-welt.de/smilie/smilie/essen/smilie_koch1.gif


It tasted like chicken.

 

[Guest]

Edited to add: Wait until tomorrow, and then Poop Goes The Weasel!

This too shall pass.


http://www.addis-welt.de/smilie/smilie/wc/hurryup.gif

 

[cheerful_deviant]

Re: Re: Re: Rumsfeld skewered by former fans, then braised and served on a bed of rice

You ate the Christmas WEASEL?!?

Christmas Weasel: The other white meat.

 

[Guest]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Rumsfeld skewered by former fans, then braised and served on a bed of

Christmas Weasel: The other white meat.

Very white. Almost transparent.