Feith: I reject ’snide and shallow self-justification’ in my memoir.
Feith: I reject ’snide and shallow self-justification’ in my memoir.
Yesterday, former Pentagon official Douglas Feith held an event promoting his new book, “War and Decision.” During his talk, Feith claimed that he disapproved of the “snide and shallow self-justification typical in memoirs of former officials,” or the “‘I-was-surrounded-by-idiots’ school of memoir writing.” Yet as ThinkProgress has noted previously, this is exactly what Feith has done with his memoir. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank reports:
He argued that former secretary of state Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, were the ones who failed to challenge the logic of going to war — not him. He suggested that Powell, Armitage, Franks, former Iraq viceroy Jerry Bremer and even Feith’s old boss, Donald Rumsfeld, should be blamed for the postwar chaos in Iraq — not him. … And he implicitly blamed President Bush for not cracking down on insubordinate behavior at the State Department. [...]
It must have been very difficult being Doug Feith: correct all the time, and surrounded by idiots.
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Aw, Dougie’s just afraid of being labeled a war criminal when this is all over…
Give him a break… and a fresh pair of Depends.
April 25th, 2008 at 9:53 amThose all-powerful republican memoirs. Is there anything their books can’t fix about their incompetence?
April 25th, 2008 at 9:58 amCut him some slack. Maybe he hasn’t read it yet.
April 25th, 2008 at 9:58 amTrying to make sense of Feith’s prattling is like chewing fog.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:01 amAfter we compare all the neo-cons’ memoirs about how they view what happened, we will come to the conclusion that it was all mere chance that the War in Iraq, the misbegotten and totally lost War on Terror, the erosion of basic constitutional rights, the callous treatment of veterans, the disasterous response of the federal government to Katrina, the spitting in the face of the Geneva Accords and the continual failure of accountibility all came about.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:02 amLogan’s Law: the dumber the right-winger, the smarter he thinks he is.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:03 amAll these “retired” partners in crime are so concerned with there own legacies. Not one of these losers can bring themselves to take one shread of responsilbility for the mountain of deadly mistakes that they have made. It’s the Republican way…they want and NEED to be right in the middle of things, stroking their swollen egos, reveling in their power but when their faced with the realities of their incompetencies they point blame at everyone else. Maybe if they had learned from past mistakes, considered JUST ONCE whether their actions are the best thing to do for our Nation rather than the Republican party, or gave a listen once in a while to their conscience and weighed the consequences of breaking laws and trying to cover them up…oh sorry, what the hell was I thinking? These are republicans…the best way to show the Country that Government doesn’t work is to prove it through hiring incompetents and willfully driving the Nation straight into the ground. Heckuva job, Dougie!
April 25th, 2008 at 10:03 amI guess he could’ve just wrote:
“Clowns to the left of me…jokers to my right and here I am, stuck in the middle alone.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:06 amIf I may paraphrase Hebrews 11.1
“Feith is the substance of things hoped-for”
April 25th, 2008 at 10:10 amLogan’s Law: the dumber the right-winger, the smarter he thinks he is.
There does seem to be something to this observation.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:12 amThe ever Projecting Feith is a one man circular firing squad.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:14 amDougie’s book is merely a trial balloon. GDumbya is watching closely to see if the public buys Dougie’s “it’s-all-these-other-idiots’-fault” defense. If it flies, GDumbya will claim it for his own defense.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:15 amyeah he knows he is a war criminal…
April 25th, 2008 at 10:19 amtom…”trial balloon”
Entirely possible.
And if not intentional, Bush would surely use it anyway–or rather the “scholars” at his lie-brary would and then Bush would use that.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:19 amWould that be his lie-brary of justice?
April 25th, 2008 at 10:32 amThe moebian logic of Feith’s argument:
My ideas and advice weren’t stupid, just the people who agreed with me and acted upon them in every detail, which made me and my ideas look stupid, which they weren;t becasue I’m brilliant and they’re too stupid to recognize that.
AND YOU! You’re all stupid too, you stupid-heads. But I’ll show you , I’ll show them ALL! Bwahhahahahahaaaa!!!
April 25th, 2008 at 10:34 amtheswan…”lie-brary of justice?”
mmm…something a bit closer to the Orwellian…
the “Suppository of Truth” perhaps?
April 25th, 2008 at 10:38 amThis poor soul HAS gone off the deep-end.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:41 amPerhaps he can call his own book as a witness, when he’s on trial at the Hague…
April 25th, 2008 at 10:56 amThe ‘dumbest guy on the planet’ cannot be trusted to say anything of value because, well…he’s DUMB.
The biggest problem is the enabling of any of these war criminals. Don’t buy his book. Stop pretending that he has anything of importance to say. The only time it would have been WORTH something if he had said something about all these misgivings BEFORE the war was launched.
The best thing Think Progress can do is to MARGINALIZE the bastard by completing ignoring anything and everything he says.
April 25th, 2008 at 11:19 amI have a suggestion. Since the DOJ can be bought off with Luxury Seats at the Redskins Game and some fine dining. I suggest we take up a collection to get justice Republican Style.
It’s not like we would be hindering prosecution, we are just speeding up the process.
It must be all the meds I’m taking for this flu… I just couldn’t help myself… it was just a thought..
April 25th, 2008 at 11:25 amLet me get this straight.
Dug Faith is decrying authors who suggest they were surrounded by idiots?
How does one surround oneself with oneself.
A paradox, to be sure.
April 25th, 2008 at 11:25 amRUC – You wrap yourself in the American Flag and surround yourself with platitudes and empty rhetoric and top it all off with a nice cheese sauce.
April 25th, 2008 at 11:35 amI wonder if getting fired by Georgetown University will help booksales. The stupidest man on the planet is also the biggest liar and quickest to blame anyone but himself. Quite the resume. Maybe he can pick lettuce?
April 25th, 2008 at 11:44 amGen Franks was right, Feither really is the stupidest f_cking guy on the planet.
Actually, with all this “everyone around me is an idiot” talk, he sounds just like my ex.
So yeah, stupidest guy on the planet…
April 25th, 2008 at 11:45 am24). Moondancer: I think his book tour is winding down. This asshat has been everywhere. He did the Daily Show, Charlie Rose, last night he was on Bloomberg, I believe he also did CNN, and CBS and all the morning shows.
Yeah, he is a criminal in OUR eyes and to most sane people, but the corporate media sees him as one of their own, regretably.
April 25th, 2008 at 12:02 pmFeith is one of the leading war criminals in the Administration. He is to Bush as Goebbels was to Hitler. He should be executed for what he did to the people of Iraq.
April 25th, 2008 at 1:08 pmIt reminds me of a proverb:
April 25th, 2008 at 1:27 pmIt is better to keep one’s mouth closed and let people think you are the dumbest mother f’er on the planet than to open your mouth and prove it beyond all doubt.
Heckuva job, Dougie.
i hope nobody buys his book. i’m curious to see what kind of pandering goes on when he doesn’t have a journalist around to keep him on topic. maybe i’ll check it out from the library. i’d hate for any of my money to go to his ‘09 legal defense fund.
April 25th, 2008 at 1:34 pmTheir bubble is getting smaller by the minute! The news of WH secret meeting on the US’s torture program, the news about Pentagon Propaganda in the Media, Domestic spying… D. Feith has reason in trying to re-write history. However, we have plenty of evidence to hang the bastard for WAR CRIMES, CRIMES OF AGRESSION AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. HAGUE 2009.
April 25th, 2008 at 4:40 pmPS.I would use Feith’s book not even as toilet paper!
.
The spoke in the wheel never complains about itself, instead it is ALWAYS the other spokes that caused the wheel to fail.
.
April 25th, 2008 at 5:46 pmI wouldn’t use this war criminal’s book not even as toilet paper!
April 25th, 2008 at 10:50 pmI’m not sure what business Doug Feith is in, but if you or I had this man’s record of incompetence in our professions, we would be run out of town. Instead, he is rewarded with book deals, positions on “think tanks”, and a Harvard Professorship.
Gee, I guess failure pays after all.
April 26th, 2008 at 9:19 pm