White House defends Rumsfeld.
By on Feb 20th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
White House defends Rumsfeld.
“The White House defended Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday from criticism from Republican Sen. John McCain that he was one of the worst U.S. defense secretaries ever for his handling of the Iraq war. … The White House backed Rumsfeld but was careful not to criticize McCain in doing so.”
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WORST ADMINISTRATION EVER!
February 20th, 2007 at 6:14 pmWhy would they hold back on McCain now? It’s always been a free-for-all before.
February 20th, 2007 at 6:19 pmWhy would they hold back on McCain now? It’s always been a free-for-all before.
Comment by Zooey
Because McCain has become their most favorite sock-puppet and will carry the NeoCon wet dream if elected. They injected ground dear bone into his neck, and control him from the witch doctor’s place.
February 20th, 2007 at 6:23 pmcannibal party!!!! wooo-hoooo!!!
February 20th, 2007 at 6:23 pmBecause McCain has become their most favorite sock-puppet and will carry the NeoCon wet dream if elected. They injected ground dear bone into his neck, and control him from the witch doctor’s place.
Comment by ForTruth
Oh. Of course. How could I be so silly?
February 20th, 2007 at 6:28 pmSo who is worse?
Rumsfeld or Robert McNamara ?
What do you guys think?
February 20th, 2007 at 6:31 pmRUmsfeld was worse. He is part of the new world order of asswipes.
February 20th, 2007 at 6:36 pmMcCain attack on one of the original authors of PNAC cannot be accepted by The White House and Cheney.
Cheney described his friend Rumsfeld as one of the greatest Secretary of Defense in US history.
But McCain is looking for any winning card anywhere these days,so by attacking Rumsfeld ‘who was not popular’anyway might bring in few points to John McCain who is desperately in need of.
McCain is so desperate that he has to pander to the same people whom he criticised in his last run for presidency in 2000 like the Falwells and that Pat Robertsons. McCain is moving on the issues these days like he riding a seesaw.
One the other hand, the White House do not want to hurt McCain candidacy chances,while keeping Rummy untouched.
February 20th, 2007 at 6:39 pmI was young when McNamara was SecDef. and what I recall is that I did not like him. Recently I saw him featured in a documentary, the name escapes me, and he appeared a very conflicted person. Guilt is a miserable, slow punishment.
February 20th, 2007 at 6:39 pmRumsfeld may be even worse than McNamara. Maybe because it is here and now. But it seems that he is a colder fish than McNamara and less likely to feel guilt for his hubris and incompetency.
Worse than McNamara? Try this for starters. WaPo in October 2006.
February 20th, 2007 at 6:44 pmhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/06/AR2006100601422.html
Marie, you saw the Errol Morris documentary The Fog of War. It was basically a one on one conversation with McNamara.
I don’t think Rumsfeld will ever feel an ounce of remorse. He is cut from the same dick shaped cloth as Cheney and Bush.
-GSD
February 20th, 2007 at 6:45 pmThat’s it GSD. Thanks.
February 20th, 2007 at 6:46 pmRummy ~ The man has no shame.
February 20th, 2007 at 6:46 pmBottom feeders all.mcchimpie, rummy, cheney, bushei, ricie, put all of them in jail..mccaine will not get elected even if the ballott box is rigged, it won’t happen…Few thing’s I know for sure and this is one of them…..Blessings
February 20th, 2007 at 6:49 pm“We think Donald Rumsfeld was an enormously consequential and effective secretary of defense and somebody who led to the transformation of the Department of Defense.”
Hmmm…if you remove effective from that sentence it might be halfway accurate.
February 20th, 2007 at 6:51 pmI am surprised that McCain didn’t shift into Manchurian Candidate mode and say about Rumsfeld:
McCain: “Don Rumsfeld is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”
-GSD
February 20th, 2007 at 6:52 pmWe still do not know why Bush and Cheney let Rummy go. If he was the most effective…then why let him go?!!
February 20th, 2007 at 6:56 pmJLM: Rumhead is worse, hands down.
February 20th, 2007 at 6:58 pmHmmm…if you remove effective from that sentence it might be halfway accurate.
Comment by CONservative — February 20, 2007 @ 6:51 pm
even with the word left in…
February 20th, 2007 at 6:59 pm“effects” are not always positive…
i believe he was quite effective at attaining the desired affects…
all under the heading of “war profits”…
If he was the most effective…then why let him go?!!
Comment by tarazan — February 20, 2007 @ 6:56 pm
easier to do the dirty work from the background…
February 20th, 2007 at 7:00 pmAnyone notice McCain would do anything say anything to get his name in the media.A certain sign that this jackass,McCain has no Credibility.
February 20th, 2007 at 7:03 pm#22- katy > Dirty work, or taking care of the Laundry….?!!
February 20th, 2007 at 7:07 pmHe still shows up for work in the Pentagon, doesn’t he?
February 20th, 2007 at 7:11 pmeven with the word left in…
“effects†are not always positive…
i believe he was quite effective at attaining the desired affects…
all under the heading of “war profitsâ€â€¦
Hmmm…didn’t look at it that way. Very true statement. Let’s add to that ‘freedom curtailment’ (while they talk out their @$$es about advancing freedom).
February 20th, 2007 at 7:16 pm#22- katy > Dirty work, or taking care of the Laundry….?!!
Comment by tarazan — February 20, 2007 @ 7:07 pm
sure, that too…
you all know he still has a desk at the pentagon, right?
just like rove, he’s still around… these people are parasites…
February 20th, 2007 at 7:26 pmMcCain’s campaign if all but OVER! He missed the Iraq vote because he is spineless and concerned about how his vote will be interpreted and used against him. Now the WH is rebuking McCain, again regarding his comments about Rummy. This administration will hang McCain out to dry – again! He just doesn’t seem to be coherent or intelligent enough to “get it” after all this time and how Bush massacred him in the debates….fahgetabout Fibber!
February 20th, 2007 at 7:36 pmAmericans detest Rumsfeld at this point so the mere thought of him skulking around behind the scenes is abhorrent, indeed.
February 20th, 2007 at 7:37 pmNo trolls?
February 20th, 2007 at 8:30 pmeerie, isn’t it, big papa?
February 20th, 2007 at 8:31 pmRumsfeld or Robert McNamara?
Rumsfeld is worse for three reasons:
1. McNamara did not have the advantage of seeing his own failure in hindsight. Rumsfeld simply ignores history.
2. Rumsfeld never admits error.
3. Rumsfeld frankly couldn’t give a Shi’ite.
February 20th, 2007 at 8:43 pmMcNamara expressed remorse, and apologized for his role in Vietnam, Rumsfeld won’t.
February 20th, 2007 at 8:49 pmComment by Krazny #34
….30 years later…
February 20th, 2007 at 9:03 pmmake that…
…30 years TOO LATE!
February 20th, 2007 at 9:03 pmRumsfeld is far worse than McNamara. Why? Well, for one thing Rumsfeld had the history of our failure in Vietnam to learn from. Apparently he learned nothing. But in any case, Rumsfeld will never recognize, probably not even to himself, the horror to which he has contributed so much.
February 20th, 2007 at 9:04 pmWith what words could anyone possibly defend Rumsfeld? What kind of defense would that be……..”He meant well, but was too out of touch with reality, just like the rest of us in the administration”?
“OH YEAH?!!?”
There is no salient defense of Rumsfeld, except that Bush was too stupid to sack him 3 years ago.
February 20th, 2007 at 9:08 pmWhere did anybody get the idea that the White House wouldn’t defend Rumsfeld? Rumsfeld was doing exactly what Bush and Cheney wanted him to do.
I wish we had a more accountable government, a government that didn’t rely on Luntz-speak (Frank Luntz) to fool citizens into believing it intends to do something completely different than what it says it will do, but we don’t. I would think that after 6 years of it, of verbal trickery like “compassionate conservatism,” we would know that nothing coming out of the Bush administration can be trusted or taken at face value.
Rumsfeld fell on his sword for Bush only because Bush needed a diversion after the election. It was just more misdirection. In the days leading up to Robert Gates’ confirmation, all we heard from the media was that because Gates was in the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group, as Secretary of Defense he would go in a completely different direction than Rumsfeld: Out of Iraq.
Anyone who knew Gates’ history knew it was nonsense to think that. You don’t even have to know his history to know that ending the violence is the last thing that Bush and Republicans want. This war, when they’re able to frame it as a war on terror, has been their wildest dream come true. If they were to have wiped out the violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, gotten democratic governments firmly ensconsced, they wouldn’t be able to use our fear of terrorism to remain in power. They need the violence to continue, alternating with periods of calm. With Bush-Cheney and all proponents of this war (like McCain) in charge, the war will never be over. Not in Iraq and not the larger war on terror. That was the consequence of letting Bush go out of a criminal justice model and put it into the Pentagon.
Bush’s plan (and Gates’ job) is to stall and stonewall, and get the war in Iraq through to (and past) the 2008 election. Bush and Republicans do not intend to leave Iraq or the region. They’re betting on Gates’ increasing the U.S. military action in Iraq, driving the insurgents underground or back inside, and broadening the war into Iran so that Bush will say, “There’s no turning back now.” All they really needed to do was to change the dynamics in Iraq just long enough for it not to be the same old story every day in the news. Just long enough (a few weeks) to get Americans’ attention focused anywhere else. We’re just coming off 2 weeks of Anna Nicole Smith, and I don’t know if you’re sensing it, but the media is sniffing around for some new *nothing* to saturate us with. To break the anti-war movement’s momentum.
Democrats in Congress are a crowd watching a fireworks display. Captivated, and passively observing. There is no cohesive leadership anticipating what Bush and Cheney will do next, much less get out in front and block. That’s because Democrats refuse to refute the claim that “defeat in Iraq would be a catastrophe.”
Leaving Iraq isn’t defeat, #1. Just as leaving Vietnam wasn’t “a catastrophe.”
Bush doesn’t want to leave Iraq because, 1) his plan was to get a much bigger conflagration going in the Middle East, involving Iran and Syria, throughout the entire region, and 2) leaving Iraq now means giving up the bases and the oil deals.
This has always been about the U.S. staking a claim to the region, that it is “in our vital national interest” to control how the oil flows in and through the region. This just didn’t start with Bush, but Bush-Cheney have been more audacious about the claim. Instead of developing alternative and sustainable energy, instead of a more regulated capitalism with slower development and shared wealth for more Americans, our government under the last four administrations raided, deregulated, outsourced and sheltered. From the most, for the fewest. It’s been like a fire sale, and before long we’re going to be (like the victims of hurricane Katrina) left amidst ruins.
February 20th, 2007 at 9:11 pmTalk about the POT calling the KETTLE BLACK!!!!! McPAIN, that pasty-faced, insane flip-flopping cowardly piece of repugnant-repub shit calling Don DUMBSfailed terrible–BOTH of them are JUST AS BAD, and the mealy-mouthed white house is trying to protect MCPAIN because he kissed up to CHIMPya and Bushland Uber Allies SO ALL GOOD NAZIS MUST STICK TOGETHER–YA!!!!!
February 20th, 2007 at 9:25 pmSo who is worse?
Rumsfeld or Robert McNamara ?
Comment by Jebus loves me — February 20, 2007 @ 6:31 pm
Rumsfeld -it’s not even a contest.
McNamara recognised, towards the end of his tenure as Sec of Defense, that the Johnson administration’s policies in SouthEast Asia needed change.
Donald Rumsfeld -like the rest of this (mis)administration- is still on “stay the course” mode.
February 20th, 2007 at 9:51 pmIs it me or is the right wing on the ropes? They are now defending the worst SoD in the history of the country. 2008, here we come.
February 20th, 2007 at 11:37 pmAnother egostistical nutcase that came back to take another whack at destroying his own country was of course Napoleon. Where does one begin with how absurd the notion that Rumsfeld could ever be considered as the Best Defense Secretary “ever” over real American honorees such as Knox and Stimson is disturbing in the face of the disaster he has created for us now. Certainly Knox was not fired by Washington, nor was Stimson fired by Rooselvelt. Why would they be ? Why would you fire the person in charge of military operations at a time when we are in very bad trouble with a war that was declared “accomplished” nearly four years ago ? Well friends, we all know the emporer is not wearing clothes at this point but really, it should be a law that no Defense Secretary will take that office without a significant record of combat experience. Both McNamara and Rumsfeld would have been rejected if that were the case, and hundreds of thousands would have been spared their agony.
But alas, the nut that uttered those absurd words of praise last week was himself a failed defense secretary with no combat experience. You see, Dick has managed to make a life for himself off the misery others, a role played countless times before by men who have not seen first hand the true hell of war up close, for only they are true warriors we need to lead the defense of this still very fine nation we call home.
How could a this all be ? I’m having a nightmare that I’m in a Fox news episode. You too ? OK, wake me up now… please.
How could we they have underestimated the fact that with oil averaging $65 -$70 pb over the past couple of years, that the Middle East is awash in cash, and a good portion of this absurd misbalance fuels this war – the explosives used to blow up our troops on the roads every day. You think it comes from selling honey ? Rugs ? Cut the crap. The best defense strategy we could employ would be to rip the rug right out from under them – orchestrate a massive strategy to bring down the price of oil to say back to $10 dollars a barrell. Take 25% of the “Defense” budget that has been working for us so well (sure) and put it into domestic incentives, conservation, smart and aggressive alternative programs. The we would surely have more support globally. This is something that would have been seriously considered by Stimson and Knox if they were serving us today. Take out their supply lines, right !!!
OK. Now I am dreaming pleasant thoughts of eventual peace. Don’t wake me please…
February 20th, 2007 at 11:50 pmLOL Rummy is Dick Cheney’s Brokeback Mountain lover, so McCain better stay away from Dicky especially if he has a shotgun > lol.
February 21st, 2007 at 12:30 am