Appearing on CNN, Donald Rumsfeld defended Rep. Jean Schmidt’s personal attack on Rep. Jack Murtha from the House floor:

BLITZER: Well, the — one of the Republican Congresswomen, Jean Schmidt of Ohio, basically called him [Murtha] a coward.

RUMSFELD: I don’t think that’s correct. I think she quoted somebody.

BLITZER: She quoted a letter that — she got a letter. But she read it…

(CROSSTALK)

RUMSFELD: It didn’t even refer to Congressman Murtha.

As Wolf Blitzer noted, Schmidt’s comments referred directly to Murtha. Here’s what she said:

A few minutes ago I received a call from Colonel Danny Bubp, Ohio Representative from the 88th district in the House of Representatives. He asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message, that cowards cut and run, Marines never do.

Even Jean Schmidt eventually figured our her smear wasn’t worth defending and asked for her remarks to be struck from the record. She’s a step ahead of Rumsfeld.

UPDATE: Rumsfeld also defended Schmidt on Face the Nation, again claiming she didn’t mention Murtha’s name. No one corrected him: Read more

“I have never seen such an outpouring — in the 32 years I’ve been in Congress — of support, and people with tears in their eyes, people walking along clapping when I’m walking through the halls of Congress, saying something needed to be said. So they’re thirsting for a solution to this and the president can’t hide behind rhetoric and neither can the vice president.”

In a striking sign of faltering U.S. efforts in Iraq, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld is now trying to distance himself from the decision to invade Iraq.

In last Sunday’s Washington Post, Rumsfeld downplayed his role significantly:

For there comes a point when even the secretary of defense must realize that “it’s not your decision or even your recommendation,” Rumsfeld reflected with Woodward. By which he meant the Iraq war wasn’t Don Rumsfeld’s decision or recommendation.

Rumsfeld went even further this morning on ABC’s “This Week,” telling George Stephanopoulos that he “didn’t advocate invasion” and in fact, “wasn’t asked” about the decision. [Full transcript below.]

Rumsfeld can’t rewrite history. The truth is, as early as 1998, he signed a letter urging President Clinton to turn his attention “to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam’s regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts.”

Hours after the 9/11 attacks, Rumsfeld was already urging his aides “to come up with plans for striking Iraq “” even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks.” According to notes, he wanted “best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit [Saddam Hussein] at same time. Not only [Osama bin Laden].”

Indeed, a Newsweek article from September 2002 described Rumsfeld as “the most visible and certainly the most colorful frontman for attacking Iraq.”

Full ABC transcript: Read more

Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld was asked about Rep. Jack Murtha on Fox News Sunday:

CHRIS WALLACE: Mr. Secretary, here’s a decorated Vietnam veteran, generally speaking a hawk on military matters. What message does it send to you as the Secretary of Defense when you’ve lost Jack Murtha on Iraq?

DONALD RUMSFELD”¦[W]e also have to understand that our words have effects, and put yourself in the shoes of a soldier who thinks that we’re going to pull out precipitously or immediately as some people have proposed. Obviously, they have to wonder whether what they’re doing makes sense if that’s the idea, if that’s the debate”¦Put yourself in the shoes of the enemy. The enemy hears a big debate in the United States, and they have to wonder, maybe all we have to do is wait, and we’ll win. We can’t win militarily. They know that. The battle is here in the United States.

The key to defeating the enemy, it seems, is to just accept Rumsfeld’s policy with no debate at all.

From the 11/20 Times of London:

The mysterious source who gave America’s foremost journalist, Bob Woodward, a tip-off about the CIA agent at the centre of one of Washington’s biggest political storms was Stephen Hadley, the White House national security adviser, according to lawyers close to the investigation.

Remember what Hadley said during a White House press briefing on Friday:

Q Were you the administration official who talked with Bob Woodward about the identity of a CIA operative?

MR. HADLEY: I have seen press reports that — and only press reports — that Bob Woodward has talked about, I guess, three sources from the administration that he had. I’ve also seen press reports from White House officials saying that I am not one of his sources.

If the Times of London report is true, Hadley was intentionally trying to mislead the press and the public by repeating information from White House officials that he knew to be false. If he did the same to Fitzgerald, he will be in serious legal jeopardy.

More information about Hadley’s role in the leak scandal here.

than wanted out of Vietnam in 1970. “A USA Today/CNN/Gallup survey last week found that the percentage (52) of Americans who want to get out of Iraq fast, in 12 months or less, is even larger than the percentage (48) that favored a quick withdrawal from Vietnam when that war’s casualty toll neared 54,000 in the apocalyptic year of 1970,” reports Frank Rich.