Scummy Rummy
Poor Don Rumsfeld. History will remember him as an engineer not of one but of two entirely separate U.S. military catastrophes. I’m not sure which historical figure can match that record.
He will also be remembered as an official who brimmed with and was ultimately consumed by his own hubris, arrogance and self-delusion. Oh yeah, his obit will most certainly note he was a vicious, amoral man who was quick to belittle and deride anyone who dared to criticize or question him, a self-consumed petty tyrant willing to compromise the interests of his counrty in favor of his own political chimera.
There Rummy was in all of his stunning inglory yesterday, telling a Salt Lake City gathering of the Veterans of Foreign Wars that critics of the current war in Iraq are the moral equivalent of those who would have appeased the Nazis.
Scummy Rummy.
Rumsfeld’s outburst comes only a week after his boss and chief enabler, GW Bush, swore to the nation that this administration would never, ever, under any conditions as much as dream of questioning the patriotism of war critics. Why of course not! Not unpatriotic. Just good old dupes of the Nazis. Got it, George.
This sort of crud from the failed Secretary of Defense doesn’t merit as much as a riposte. It should only confirm the abundant suspicion that behind all that high-falutin’ neo-con intellectual cover resides a claque of ideological dimwits. The DefSec right at the top of the heap. If he didn’t leave so much wreckage and blood in his wake, he’d just be a laughable old fool in tennis shoes.
What we hear, of course, is the death rattle of a conservative political class whose prestige and influence crested with the Reagan Revolution and whose own spawn have done them in. The simple, and rather obvious, truth is that the politics of the Bush Administration have scorched and burned the fortunes of the GOP. Just two months short of the mid-terms, the Republican Party now has absolutely no political program on which to run. They’re down to Nazi-baiting the opposition.
And not just the opposition. As E.J. Dionne notes, the attacks on war critics come precisely at the moment when more and more Republican candidates are deserting from official Iraqi policy. Says E.J.:
The cracking of Republican solidarity in support of Bush on Iraq has short-term implications for November’s elections and long-term implications for whether the administration can sustain its policies.
With a growing number of Republicans now echoing Democratic criticisms of the war, Republican strategists will have a harder time making the election a referendum on whether the United States should “cut and run” from Iraq, the administration’s typical characterization of the Democrats’ view.
And even the war’s strongest supporters are offering increasingly critical assessments of past decisions. Last Tuesday Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) recited a litany of past administration statements — “stuff happens, mission accomplished, last throes, a few dead-enders” — as indications that “we had not told the American people how tough and difficult this task would be.” On Friday McCain reiterated his loyalty to the Iraq mission, but he had already made his point.
Hey E.J. — make that John McCain, Oberfuhrer.
August 30th, 2006 at 12:57 am
If you’re a Republican president elected in 2008 and you want to have a foreign policy staff untouched by Bush failure stink, who do you choose? Are there any high level GOP foreign policy wonks who don’t have their fingerprints on this mess?
August 30th, 2006 at 5:04 am
Ridicule …
Don Rumsfeld gave a provocative and in my opinion shameful speech yesterday, which defended the war in Iraq and the Bush administration’s conduct of the fight against terrorism. In that speech, he argued that those who are against the war…
August 30th, 2006 at 5:57 am
As Hannah Arendt so memorably outlined 60 years ago, it is precisely the laughable old fools in tennis shoes who are capable of great evil because they are so tone-deaf to others’ sufferings that the scale of their crimes doesn’t even register on their radar.
Any fan of the serial killer tales presented on Medical Detectives could tell you the same thing.
August 30th, 2006 at 7:08 am
“Just two months short of the mid-terms, the Republican Party now has absolutely no political program on which to run.”
They can’t even run on the economy, according to the latest figures from the census bureau–real wages have decreased since this bunch came in despite growth, a neat trick that only deeply sucking the asses of the rich can accomplish (with apologies for the scatology but this crew really inspires it in bucketfuls.)
August 30th, 2006 at 8:04 am
Of course they have a political program to run on Marc. You just posted about it.
Bush is betting the majority want Iraq and Afganistan stablized so their democracies can succeed before bailing. Bush is betting the majority want Israel supported in their effort to deal with Hamas and Hezbollah. Bush is betting the majority want Korea and Iran dealt with.
Bush is betting the majority want leadership, not kicking the can down the road with appologies and appeasement delays. I’m betting he will be right.
August 30th, 2006 at 8:36 am
Wow, amazing that we still get this song here. Let’s just take one of these:
“Bush is betting the majority want Iraq and Afganistan stablized so their democracies can succeed before bailing.”
Now, can we have a 5 year progress report on this, please?
August 30th, 2006 at 8:51 am
“Bush is betting the majority want leadership”
Sorry, but if he’s right about that, the GOPers are doomed.
August 30th, 2006 at 9:12 am
The only salvation for Repub’s is Colin Powell or Rudy Giuliani to run. John Mccain is somewhat moot especially since he is trying to gather the support of the religuous base of the conservatives. My aforementioned candidates were either spurned or just plain untouched by the cowboy politics and still have major credibility. Note that both talk as if it was right to want to go into Iraq, but both were critical of actually going in there. I wonder if it’ll take someone like Russ Feingold or Chuck Schumer or Barak Obama to knock those two off.
I really hope Colin Powell runs.
Although the above Democratic candidates look damn fine considering the rule we’ve had the passed five years.
August 30th, 2006 at 10:22 am
Ryan, my son, are you sure Colin Powell does not have a, um, er, credibility problem?
August 30th, 2006 at 11:01 am
And does the name “Bernie Kerrick” mean anything to you? I know Chris Matthews is ga ga over “America’s Mayor” but do you really think a guy who is pro-choice, pro-gay and has had one of the really messy public divorces will get the vote of the biblers?
The GOP has nade its bed. They are where the Dems were in 1968 after LBJ sctrewed the pooch. Sorry, believers but the wilderness awaits you. Get used to it.
August 30th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
Michael,
he has a lot more credibility than anyone at that level – Democratic or Republican.
August 30th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
“he has a lot more credibility than anyone at that level – Democratic or Republican.”
I’m sorry, but just saying it doesn’t make it so. This man went before the entire world and made an entirely erroneous case for WMD in Iraq, thus helping to launch a war that may end up sinking the Republicans and will have ramifications for us and our children and their children, all over the world. Let him run for pres, the Democrats can replay the videos.
August 30th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
Erroneous case? They’ve debunked that those trailers couldn’t be used for WMD? Zarqawi didn’t enlist in a Baathist militant regime (that was loyal to Saddam)? Really?
As a military commander, he was overreaching naturally because Saddam, like Iran, is trying to be as private as possible to conceal what they’re really doing.
I know what you’re thinking: I’m shilling the ad ignorantium argument. But since he was analyzing their potential, and that is part of analyzing Saddam’s goodies, I can’t fault him for assuming too much when they had quite an undertaking into WMD’s in the 90′s. You remember that Saddam actually had them right?
Clearly, it was erroneous because it didn’t prove that they were used for that purpose, but they did show that they were small chemistry labs – whether Powell showed they did actually make WMDs is irrelevant; what the * is Saddam doing with trailers that double as small chemical labs?????
August 30th, 2006 at 4:48 pm
Colin Powell knows he ended his career when he puffed the evidence before the UN in order to incite its member nations into war. It was a political error and a personal sin, both of great magnitude. He made a number of calculations and risks, and pretty much the worst came about. All of the “doubtful” evidence he proferred as true turned out to be false. The honorable thing would have been to resign, but there was a chance that such an action itself would have barred him from further influence over the right-wing that dominated the Republican Party.
Funny thing is, if he had done the right thing, he would be a hero now and would be a serious contender for President. As it is, he is due for a mea culpa book and concomitant world lecture tour.
August 30th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
Ryan, do you still think we went to war because of chemical weapons? This is such bullshit. Don’t you remember how it started with the hype about the mushroom cloud and eventually degraded to a couple of weather balloon trailers? Give it a rest. WMD means nuclear weapons in everyone’s book. We’ve all seen what these people can do by twisting phrases like WMD and “freedom and democracy” to advance their dark agenda.
August 30th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
[As Hannah Arendt so memorably outlined 60 years ago]
43, actually:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eichmann_in_Jerusalem
August 30th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
I guess this “with us or agin us” stuff is gauling coming from the hack who screwed up big time; but come on, Republican politics without the flag baiting is a Grateful Dead Show with no gutiar solos. I’m sure other moderate repubs have had to grin and bear it while basicly being called weakings or traitors by their own party.
They own the stupid vote, they gotta play the dumb card. So just remember, during WWII, when Rosevelt cut taxes on the rich, told everyone to go shoping, and went after Hitler by attacking Spain, the Republicans remained the loyal opposistion.
August 30th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
The GOP is counting on Democrats to lack the courage to acknowledge that demonizing Arab despots is not a viable strategy.
The Republicans and their media allies will pound away at their theme: “Would you prefer that Saddam was still in power?” and variations on that theme, and, unfortunately, the most powerful, richest Democrats will shrink from opposing that.
It worked, against all odds, in 2004, and it may well do so in 2008, if the Democrats don’t grow a spine and start standing against demonization dogma.
September 2nd, 2006 at 7:36 am
What is really contemptible about Bush is hius abject cowardice. On the one hand he says that will question the patriotism of those who oppose the war, but then he sends out Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney to do just that.
April 5th, 2007 at 12:55 am
Excuse, and what you think concerning forthcoming elections?
April 9th, 2007 at 2:42 am
cool blog!
April 18th, 2007 at 12:05 am
nice photos of this blog
May 15th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Ryan Designer…
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May 9th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
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