Should we surprised that Rumsfeld is being attacked by all his political enemies? No. This isn’t rocket science. They attack all the time, and the prison guard fiasco is a perfect opportunity. Keep at it, stay with, something eventually will stick; that’s their mode. And James Lileks points out something very important:
"The minute I heard Biden refer to Rumsfeld with the magic words - “what did he know, and when did he know it?” - I knew that the Iraqi POW story had jumped the shark. Or rather jumped a pyramid of blindfolded, homoerotic sharks. It’s not the question, it’s the words: use of the Vietnam and Watergate era terms like an incarnation that will topple the current administration. I almost expect someone to ask whether there is a cancer on the presidency, a chancre, or a weeping mole. Stop it! STOP LIVING IN THE PAST!
What really bastes my brisket (did I just write that? I need a beer.) is the constant desire to return us to the nadir of the post-war era. They want us to think: quagmire. They want us to think: Nixonian scandal. How inspirational. How Churchillian. I have nothing to offer the American people but blood, sweat and Billy Beer...
That Biden would float the idea of axing Rumsfeld in the middle of this confliict over this tells you how seriously he takes the war. He knows what he says won’t bring victory next year. But it will get him on TV tonight, and perhaps in the Times tomorrow." I don’t have anything to add to that. Lileks nails it. But, it won’t work.
I don’t know exactly what "they" want us to think, but this is actually very bad. The army had this Taguba report in January and neither Rumsfeld nor Bush had read it until this week. At some point leaders take responsibility, so I think that criticizing Rumsfeld is rather appropriate
Long and Short? this whole incident is an overplyed sideshow. These sadists in training should and probably will get to make big rocks into little ones for quite a long time.
But Rummy resign? Should FDR have canned George Marshall because Patton slapped a soldier? Wouldn’t we be screaming for Rummy’s head if he’d spent the past month fretting over this INSTEAD of the Fallujah and Sadr rebellions? I am fast becoming conviced that they really are unpatriotic...
Biden and Kerry are unpatriotic. Winning the election is far more important to them than defeating the Islamo-fascists. We shouldn’t be afraid to say it.