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This is the best analysis of the uproar I've found. Even if the furor over Rumsfeld's speech had already died down (it hasn't) I would have posted it here for reference, backup and posterity -- AND to help put the whole brouhaha, yet another media-manufactured "controversy" --in perspective for anyone who hasn't analyzed it yet.
1 posted on 09/03/2006 7:43:04 PM PDT by FreeKeys
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To: FreeKeys

If reality does not fit your agenda, edit it or re-invent it until it does. It's in the liberal charter.


2 posted on 09/03/2006 7:44:39 PM PDT by stm (Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence)
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To: FreeKeys
You can read Rumsfeld's American Legion speech here, and Burns' "report" here.
3 posted on 09/03/2006 7:51:15 PM PDT by FreeKeys ("Sometimes the 4th estate seems more like a 5th column."-Tom Sowell)("It's the enemedia."-Fred Nerks)
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To: FreeKeys

Rumsfeld Use of Word “Appease” Irks Dems

In a speech to the American Legion Convention in Salt Lake City, Secretary Rumsfeld asked “Can we truly afford to believe that somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased?” Inasmuch as the term “appeasement” is widely associated with unsuccessful pre-World War II efforts to deter Adolf Hitler from starting a war, Democratic critics of President Bush’s handling of the war on terror were quick to take offense.

“I never said ‘appease,’” protested Representative John Murtha (D-Penn). “I said we should assuage the fears of the Muslims by pulling our troops out of their countries.”
“Mollify is the term I use,” said Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisc). “I am no appeaser. I am a ‘mollifier.’”

“At first, I was for placating our adversaries,” said Senator John Kerry (D-Mass). “Later I switched to favor propitiation. But now I agree with Senator Feinberg. I think we should mollify them. Parenthetically, if I may interject, they would most likely have been placated, propitiated and/or mollified by now if I had been elected president in 2004. But never, ever would I appease them. Rumsfeld is slandering me.”

“I am no appeaser,” said Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass). “Getting bombed has always struck me as the better option. Rumsfeld needs to apologize and resign.”

“This is almost as bad as the ‘cut-run-surrender’ smear the Republicans have been trying to lay on us,” Howard Dean, Democratic National Committee Chairman, complained. “We never said that. Our position is that the U.S. should disengage, flee and yield. And we aren’t waving a white flag. It’s ‘cream.’”

Thus far, Rumsfeld has declined to apologize, resign, or respond to the Democrats’ complaints. “How can I respond?” Rumsfeld asked. “Their position is incoherent. “Appease, mollify, placate, whatever—it’s all the same thing.”

read more...

http://www.azconservative.org/Semmens1.htm


4 posted on 09/03/2006 10:05:36 PM PDT by John Semmens
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