Posted on 10/23/2001 5:26:37 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
Edited on 09/03/2002 4:49:28 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
He was hanging by a thread, and then came Sept. 11. No longer embattled, the defense chief shows he's got the right stuff.
WASHINGTON -- Almost every day now, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stands at the Pentagon podium and meets the press, the most visible government official in a confounding new war.
When he does, he is articulate and calm. Then he's testy; then he's grave. Then he's funny; then serious again. He's all of those things in a single session, but he rarely is too much of any one quality. In short, he's in control.
For most of this year, no one in the small and sometimes catty Defense Department world knew what Rumsfeld wanted to do with the U.S. military -- including, it seemed, Rumsfeld. The only thing the insiders knew was that Rumsfeld was talking about "transforming" the Pentagon. But they didn't know how and he wasn't sharing -- and that scared them.
Geez, finally a man comes along that actually listens and all these people can do is fuss and worry. It seemed that he didn't know what he wanted to do. Do they think that you come into a post with all the garbage that clintoons admin. left and wave your magic wand to make everything all better? In what, two weeks, six weeks? Phuleeeeze!
Personally I think it's just the reporters and the dems who were worried, the rest of us knew we were in good hands.
Thank you Mr. Rumsfeld! :-)
There is very little reporting done, but a lot of editorializing masquerading as reporting.
These guys don't know. Facts have given way to opinion. Talking heads have taken the place of investigation.
I watch military experts on Fox, CNN, and MSNBC talk about what the administration should be doing, and what they are not doing, and what they need to be doing, and what they should hurry up and do, and what we are in danger of losing... and the anchors suck it up. These people are retired military... they don't know. They can theorize. They can make things up. But they don't know!!
Sorry about the rant!
The real situation is that the Pentagon is stuffed full on clintonoid time-servers and **s-kissers, and the lower ranks of officers are full of feminist gender-benders, and Rumsfeld found it very difficult to know what to do about it. The military was in shambles, in need of major surgery, and how do you deal with that when most of the top brass were promoted by clinton because they licked his toes?
At the moment, they've evidently sidelined and bypassed most of them. But the stables still need a thorough cleaning.
Thank God for Donald Rumsfeld. He has the BEST press smack downs I have ever heard. Ha!
Nonsense! He's always had the right stuff. Typical of the Chicago Tribune, leading with a slam. This is why I dropped my subscription months ago, and started sending that money to FR!
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