chefmike
09-05-2006, 08:29 AM
Rumsfeld: More Chamberlain Than Churchill
Frank Rich turns a scathing eye on Donald Rumsfeld this week, writing an op-ed that Bush won't read about a guy Bush won't fire. Still, it needs to be said. Rich magnanimously declared that Rummy had outdone his previous gems of "stuff happens" and "you go to war with the Army you have" with his latest comparison of Iraq war critics to appeasers of the Nazis in the 1930s. Rich reminds Rumsfeld that he has a long memory, aided and abetted by the Internet:
Here's how brazen Mr. Rumsfeld was when he invoked Hitler's appeasers to score his cheap points: Since Hitler was photographed warmly shaking Neville Chamberlain's hand at Munich in 1938, the only image that comes close to matching it in epochal obsequiousness is the December 1983 photograph of Mr. Rumsfeld himself in Baghdad, warmly shaking the hand of Saddam Hussein in full fascist regalia. Is the defense secretary so self-deluded that he thought no one would remember a picture so easily Googled on the Web? Or worse, is he just too shameless to care?
Rich notes that Rumsfeld was singularly lacking in tough talk back in that 1983 visit, and prior to September 11th:
Mr. Rumsfeld also suffers from intellectual confusion about terrorism. He might not have appeased Al Qaeda but he certainly enabled it. Like Chamberlain, he didn't recognize the severity of the looming threat until it was too late. Had he done so, maybe his boss would not have blown off intelligence about imminent Qaeda attacks while on siesta in Crawford.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eat-the-press/2006/09/03/frank-rich-on-rumsfeld-_e_28615.html
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/tsc.html?URI=http://select.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/opinion/03rich.html&OQ=_rQ3D1Q26hp&OP=130e2ca1Q2Ffdc1fi-PggifY,,Gf,5f,Q5EfgIyQ5DygQ5Df,Q5EPyQ26rZriQ222
Frank Rich turns a scathing eye on Donald Rumsfeld this week, writing an op-ed that Bush won't read about a guy Bush won't fire. Still, it needs to be said. Rich magnanimously declared that Rummy had outdone his previous gems of "stuff happens" and "you go to war with the Army you have" with his latest comparison of Iraq war critics to appeasers of the Nazis in the 1930s. Rich reminds Rumsfeld that he has a long memory, aided and abetted by the Internet:
Here's how brazen Mr. Rumsfeld was when he invoked Hitler's appeasers to score his cheap points: Since Hitler was photographed warmly shaking Neville Chamberlain's hand at Munich in 1938, the only image that comes close to matching it in epochal obsequiousness is the December 1983 photograph of Mr. Rumsfeld himself in Baghdad, warmly shaking the hand of Saddam Hussein in full fascist regalia. Is the defense secretary so self-deluded that he thought no one would remember a picture so easily Googled on the Web? Or worse, is he just too shameless to care?
Rich notes that Rumsfeld was singularly lacking in tough talk back in that 1983 visit, and prior to September 11th:
Mr. Rumsfeld also suffers from intellectual confusion about terrorism. He might not have appeased Al Qaeda but he certainly enabled it. Like Chamberlain, he didn't recognize the severity of the looming threat until it was too late. Had he done so, maybe his boss would not have blown off intelligence about imminent Qaeda attacks while on siesta in Crawford.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eat-the-press/2006/09/03/frank-rich-on-rumsfeld-_e_28615.html
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/tsc.html?URI=http://select.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/opinion/03rich.html&OQ=_rQ3D1Q26hp&OP=130e2ca1Q2Ffdc1fi-PggifY,,Gf,5f,Q5EfgIyQ5DygQ5Df,Q5EPyQ26rZriQ222