I voted for the end of Jan 05. But, that's prolly just wishful thinking.
Mr Rumsfeld will hang on, as PDdiddie suggested, until the end of January, I believe. And then he will leave. But if we have any more days as horrible as today, he may not last until then.
I guess the question that I would have is this. Who else would want the job?
Sorry, McGentrix, while I respect your steadfast loyalty to this effort, this is a quagmire that we are stuck in and I'm not sure how we can get out of it.
It was a bad idea from the beginning.
Rumsfeld will finish out 2005 in office and will leave for personal reasons Ha Ha. For him to leave any sooner would almost be an admission by Bush that he made a mistake. And of course we all know Bush never makes mistakes. WE know because he told us so.
As for burning in hell, I hope he has a companion, his boss the Man of the year
When you reverse the letters in his name he becomes...Ronald Dumsfeld
Many of you voted for his ouster on November 2nd of this year, but we know how that turned out.
Rumsfeld has done some things well and other things not so well.
As a reformist Secretary of Defense he could not be expected to be beloved by the military's general officers, and most especially those in the Army. The military was in need of reform when he took over though and in that respect he's done a good job.
As a man who has delighted in blunt answers when queried by a reporter without a clue, he could not be expected to be beloved by the news media.
As a cabinet secretary who believes his boss is the president and not the congress, he could not be expected to be beloved by self-important Senators and Representatives.
Therefore we are left with three parties whose opinions actually matter:
The President
The enlisted men and women
The American people
The President has given Rummy an unequivocal endorsement.
Perhaps someone can enlighten me, but I've yet to see any authoritative polling of enlisted men and women which might indicate that they hold Rumsfield in poor regard.
Likewise, there is no indication that the American people are calling for his resignation or termination.
His rough and gruff demeanor has won him points and it's cost him points. This is the way of the world. Our greatest strengths tend to be our greatest weaknesses.
His most serious transgression, in my opinion, has been a stubborn insistence on keeping troop numbers in Iraq to an, essentially, arbitrary level. Whether or not this requires his resignation, I am uncertain.
The issue of armor for vehicles is a serious shot across Rummy's bow, but not for the reasons his critics would charge.
Conventional wartime strategy and tactics hold that the support troops which spend their time behind enemy lines do not require the armor provided to those vehicles which engage the enemy. The problem is that the war in Iraq is not a conventional war, and surely a reformist Secretary of Defense should be the one person most cognizant of this fact.
Rummy can't have it both ways. He can't dismiss the criticism of Old School military men and, at the same time, rely on conventional tactics to support his decisions.
I'm not sure that this failing requires his resignation, but I also don't believe there is no one else in the country who can do a fine job heading up the DOD. Sometimes loyalty requires the subordinate to give up the ghost even when the superior is holding firm.
Arrogance works when one is damned near flawless. Rummy can't lay claim to that condition, and yet his arrogance doesn't seem to be on the decline.
I think he should tender his resignation in March or April of 2005 - after the Iraqi elections, but I'm not sure that a president who holds loyalty in such a high regard will agree.
In the end, Rummy does deserve the Medal of Freedom, and I hope he gets it.
There is about as much of a chance of Specialist Wilson being punished as there is my election to King of The World.
Rummy may, ultimately, find himself in the fiery pits of hell, but it won't be for his service to our country. If he should find himself nose deep in cow **** and hot lava, my bet is that he will also find himself eyeball to eyeball with many of his critics.
The "American People" see Rumsfeld as a variant of Jerry Falwell... a snake-oil salesman par excellence, touting his elixir for what ails America.
But America's aches and pains have only increased under the regimen.
The Tar and Feathers are being readied in the wings.
Bobby Inman, oldest of the old school, in his particular field. This is the conclusion of a fascinating interview in
Slate:
Quote:Inman: If Rumsfeld were to be there for the next four years there will be a lot of my military colleagues who will be very unenthusiastic about it. But as much as they dislike Rumsfeld, they would not want to see a change in this immediate period. With the run-up to the Jan. 30 election in Iraq, you don't want to disrupt the chain of command.
Slate: After the elections, your military colleagues might welcome a change at the top?
Inman: They would not be greatly disappointed if he did not turn out to [serve] a full four years.
Slate: One assumes they feel the same about Paul Wolfowitz; we saw a lot of him and the neocons in the Iraq war run-up. They have virtually disappeared. Why is that?
Inman: They don't want to take the blame.
They were willing to take credit for things earlier; they don't want to take blame.
Slate: Who is going to take the blame?
Inman: I think we'd better stop there.
Slate: We're can't go opining about certain members of the administration?
Inman: No, no. Not gonna do that.
Slate: And the administration has sealed most of their documents for years to come.
Inman: Yeah, the historians are going to have a field day in 30 or 40 years.
Between Finn and Admiral Inman, someone's opinion of Rumsfailed just got blown out of the water.
Not the first time that's happened to Finn, though....
American citizens have sat on their lazy apathetic remote control asses and let the government do this to them.....now comes the harvest...
Come on guys. Rummey is in Iraq visiting our soilders showing everyone that he loves our men and women in the service. I hope no one else thinks this is a political ploy by the administration like I do.
All in all, a good Finn post...i'm not partial to those going-to-hell posts.
The biggest irony for me is being lectured by the Mc-Fox league on the failures of McNamara and Johnson and their defense of Rumsfeld and Bush
Oh and if you're a Democrat that can remember 1968...there were a lot of damage control trips to smooth out the problems of installing a puppet regime...
rabel22 wrote:Come on guys. Rummey is in Iraq visiting our soilders showing everyone that he loves our men and women in the service. I hope no one else thinks this is a political ploy by the administration like I do.
Nah, a political ploy by a politician.
Rummy will get a Medal of Freedom shortly before Bush leaves office....
He goes nowhere.
Can't disagree
Rummy...Tenet
Rummy...Tenet...no brainer.
Quote:Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, dressed as Santa Claus for the Pentagon Christmas party, gave children a dour message for the holidays.
As the small tots sat on his lap and told him their Christmas wishes, Rumsfeld lectured them with a stern message of lowered expectations
"You have to accept what you have and not what you wish for. That's just the way it is so live with it," Rumsfeld barked. When the children began sobbing, he yelled "Now settle down, settle down, I'm an old man but I can still kick any of your little asses."
President Bush downplayed the incident when asked about it in the Oval Office. "He did an outstanding job as Santa. He has a tendency to be a little gruff but I have full confidence in his ability to bring holiday cheer," Bush said.
That's of course why Bush sent him to Baghdad on Xmas Eve. :wink:
Skewpoint
Gee, getting sent to the Front in Wartime was generally NOT seen as a mark of favor from the higher-ups... often, quite the opposite.
In the Third Reich, criticism or contradiction of one's "superiors" would often result in a transfer to "The (eastern) Front".
Magus wrote:Gee, getting sent to the Front in Wartime was generally NOT seen as a mark of favor from the higher-ups... often, quite the opposite.
In the Third Reich, criticism or contradiction of one's "superiors" would often result in a transfer to "The (eastern) Front".
All accurate, of course.
Damn, I guess perhaps that tanker truck evildoer just mis-timed...
