Milbank: Rumsfeld Memo ‘Headed for the Hall of Fame of Cover-Your-Ass Memo Writing’
Milbank: Rumsfeld Memo ‘Headed for the Hall of Fame of Cover-Your-Ass Memo Writing’
Last night on “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank discussed the recently leaked Donald Rumsfeld memo that called for a “major adjustment” to our Iraq policy.
Milbank called the memo a “classic” example of “cover-your-ass memo writing in Washington.” Rumsfeld “listed every conceivable option” in his memo, Milbank says, to allow himself to claim, “Well, I recommended we go in that direction.” “This was something of an authorized leak by Rumsfeld’s people in order to protect his legacy here,” Milbank added. Watch it:
Transcript:
OLBERMANN: Time to call in our own Dana Milbank, national political reporter for the “Washington Post.” Dana, good evening.
MILBANK: Good evening, Keith.
OLBERMANN: I have to say, I’ve fallen in love with the Dickens analogy. Forgive me for going to it again. This reads like Jacob Marley’s ghost warning Scrooge. How do you explain the discrepancy between what the Defense Secretary wrote in the memo, and what the President himself was saying on the eve of the midterms?
MILBANK: Oh, I don’t think we’re giving Don Rumsfeld enough credit for this. This is a classic. This is headed for the hall of fame of cover-your-ass memo writing in Washington, when we’ve already had a lot of those. Of course there’s a discrepancy between what the Secretary of Defense was saying and what the President was saying. But look at what he’s done here, is he’s listed every conceivable option so that he can now, and for future historians, say whatever the outcome in iraq, ‘Well I recommended we go in that direction.’ Because he has recommended increasing troops, decreasing troops, staying the same, adding trainers, just about every possible permutation.
OLBERMANN: Would that have been written with an expectation that he was not going to be retained? What would have happened if the Republicans had retained both the House and the Senate and there’d been no need to show Rumsfeld the door? Would this memo have not been a noose in which Mr. Rumsfeld would have found his neck?
MILBANK: Well, then his loyalists wouldn’t have leaked the memo. It seems pretty clear that this was something of an authorized leak by Rumsfeld’s people in order to protect his legacy here.
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Expect to see more of this in the next two years.
December 5th, 2006 at 10:36 amC.Y.A. is Rumsfeld’s M.O.
December 5th, 2006 at 10:37 amNot surprising. Just like McCain, Rumsfeld will associate himself with policies he knows will never be implemented in order to embellish his legacy.
December 5th, 2006 at 10:41 amaffirmation is such a simple pleasure… but of course it was CYA…
more kudos to oblermann & co.!
December 5th, 2006 at 10:42 amThis will have be viewed against all the other wonderful statements by Rumsfeld. One memo will not overide 3 years of pushing a failed agenda.
December 5th, 2006 at 10:54 amReward results. Punish failure.
December 5th, 2006 at 10:59 am[...] Watch Video [...]
December 5th, 2006 at 11:00 amI’m not convinced that this memo was leaked on behalf of Rumsfeld’s legacy. Based on White House denials, which are nearly always outright lies, it looks like Rumsfeld was fired for submitting this memo because momma’s boy Bush can’t stand the slightest hint of criticism.
December 5th, 2006 at 11:04 amRumsfeld is a pro at covering his backside! We can laugh at the memo, but Rummy walks away scott-free to his ranch in Taos, New Mexico, and leaves behind the train wreak in Iraq that he helped to cause!
December 5th, 2006 at 11:15 amA list of options is NOT a strategy. A list of options is not “making recommendations.” It’s much more comparable to a Christmas list a family member might give to you, and you choose which gift or gifts you want to buy for them. In the case of a SecDef, I don’t define this as an example of leadership, but it’s probably typical of the kind of information Rumsfeld provided to Bush. Keep in mind, the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs was supposed to (under law) to have a direct advisory position to the President. Rumsfeld refused to allow that to occur, and all such military feedback was funneled through him.
December 5th, 2006 at 11:35 amThe “fired because of” angle is intriguing, but I think the memo is an example of why they took so long to fire him. They knew he would be a “Little bastard” after he was gone, so they kept him on to keep his mouth shut. Look for Rummy to hit the talk show circuit soon saying, ” if they had only listened to me.”
December 5th, 2006 at 11:36 amNo, don’t you see? Rummy did it all — all — for the children.
December 5th, 2006 at 11:42 amThis was a good leak as opposed to a bad leak. Once again the NYT plays along.
December 5th, 2006 at 11:45 amI wonder if the memo listed the options in categories, like say “known knowns”, “unknown knowns”, “known unknowns”. I know I don’t know and I know I don’t care because I know Rummy is now a known unknown.
December 5th, 2006 at 11:47 amWho, exactly, are all these “legacy saving” maneuvers by BushCo designed to fool? Historians will know what is BS and what isn’t. Is it to try to fool the highly evolved archeologist cockroaches that dominate the planet after we destroy ourselves?
December 5th, 2006 at 11:56 amThis is yet another example of one of those “duh” moments.
December 5th, 2006 at 12:50 pmI just hope that we are changing the direction of this country quickly enough so there will BE a future to write the history and legacy of Bush and his follies.
December 5th, 2006 at 1:35 pmRummy, it’s too late. You made your bed, not lay in it. He could have been part of a brilliant legacy, part of the administration that ended extreme poverty and hunger for billions of people…but the UN Millennium Development Goals and poverty reduction are not on the agenda. According to the Borgen Project, this administration has spent $300 billion on Iraq, when only $40-60 would have ended poverty. Shame.
December 5th, 2006 at 1:40 pmWhen the shit hits the fan on all this, no amount of CYA’ing will keep Rummy out of prison.
December 5th, 2006 at 2:19 pmPROTECT HIS LEGACY???
December 5th, 2006 at 2:36 pmMy WTF-Incredulometer just took off, it’s almost in orbit by now.
His legacy should be written on a bloody hide, with red hot barbed wire, consisting of three words. ARROGANCE, STUPIDITY, SOULLESSNESS
Extremely self absorbed. These ass-cannon’s think they are working for “the team”, and its such a noble cause, give me a break.
December 5th, 2006 at 3:34 pmRight wing is already running to Rumsfeld’s defense. Cal Thomas writes that Iraq Study Group won’t put fear to the terrorists, implying that Rumsfeld was trying to do just that. here’s a link to my ownresponse and the original article.
December 5th, 2006 at 3:47 pmright wing are already defending Rumsfeld, and not treating the memo as a desperation. Cal Thomas’ article and my response.
December 5th, 2006 at 3:49 pmFrom the memo:
Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough.
Why does Rumsfeld hate the troops so much?
December 5th, 2006 at 6:10 pmSo in other words; Rumsfield has known the right thing to do for all these years ‎but chose to do the wrong thing instead, compromising America’s well being with ‎malice and forethought.‎
December 6th, 2006 at 3:35 am“This was something of an authorized leak by Rumsfeld’s people in order to protect his legacy here,â€
The leaked memo between the SecDef and POTUS may have been leaked intentionally ? Gee you reckon ?
December 6th, 2006 at 5:10 amA suitable lead-in to your following article on No Shit Tuesday Sweeps.
Rumsfeld is a real ring-wing low-life pretending to be a patriot. His aligance extends only to himself (just like Cheney). If you think his exit memo represents CYA instincts, wait until his book comes out.
December 6th, 2006 at 10:34 amThe media and Democrats have gone out of their way to define Iraq as a failure. Fact is we won in the battle with Iraq. Now we are fighting a war on terror.
“Mission Accomplished”
What we have here right now is a humanitarian effort for the benefit of the Iraqi people. The fact is being hidden that the other oil producing countries are strategically opposed to Iraqi competition on the oil market as a democracy. You have to look at motive them simply consider that a democratic Iraq is a threat to the current status quo. And don’t give this bologna about Iran being a democracy either.
Once you have established that simple fact it becomes obvious considering that Iran and Syria are assisting the Mahidi army that they are indeed on the side of evil.
The problem is the Democrats have been given total freedom to play armchair quarter back with impunity by the media. They are the spoilers in the War against Terrorism” once again look at who benefits and you have motive. The problem is with this strategy we all loose. I disagree with Bush caving in to their game in hopes that he will gain an ally in the war instead they will only take the knife that they have imbedded into Bush’s back and twist and slash for better effect.
The only way to level the playing field is if the media properly informs the public a properly informed public will do the right thing. This idea of posturing for a Vietnam scenario in order to wreak the benefit of preaching a false story of failure instead of the real story of betrayal does no one any good.
Consider this if we only went after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Our troops get hit with WMD’s Shall I remind you of the 50 or so quotes by high level Democrats touting the thread that Saddam poses to National security? These going back into the 90’s? If it had happened we would sure be hearing about how Bush screwed up by not covering our flank side and addressing the Iraq problem.
When the world can see that Iraq is a problem that deserves to be looked at as a humanitarian issue and sees the true picture of what the problem is. Instead of a Bush vs. the world and the Democrats on the side of the world issue as it has been framed. There never will be a good ending to this story.
December 6th, 2006 at 5:52 pm