Posted on 12/16/2004 7:43:25 PM PST by Ooh-Ah
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
The pile-on of Donald Rumsfeld continues. (story) "U.S. Senator Trent Lott does not believe that Rumsfeld should resign immediately, but he does think that Rumsfeld should be replaced sometime in the next year." What's the difference? Lott said, "I'm not a fan of Secretary Rumsfeld." He mentioned this to the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce yesterday morning. "'I don't think he listens enough to his uniformed officers.' Rumsfeld has been criticized since a soldier asked him last week why the combat vehicles used in the war in Iraq don't have the proper armor. Both Rumsfeld and President Bush have said more vehicle armor will be shipped to Iraq. Lott said the United States needs more troops to help with the war. The country also needs a plan to leave Iraq once elections are over at the end of January. Lott doesn't think Rumsfeld is necessarily the person to carry out that plan. 'I would like to see a change in that slot in the next year or so,' Lott said. 'I'm not calling for his resignation, but I think we do need a change at some point.' On another military issue, Lott said he hopes the Base Realignment and Closure Commission will consider closing bases overseas rather than in the United States."
Well, Senator Lott why don't you take over that instead of farming this out to some blue-ribbon panel? You elected officials gutless wonders, when it comes to the tough decisions, there you go running for the tall grass. You don't want to be responsible to your constituents for closing military bases so you get a bunch of ex-congressmen and senators to come up there, chair a commission to decide which ones to do it, you pass the buck on all the heavy lifting and then you dare sit there and blow up at Donald Rumsfeld.
The fact of the matter is, Senator Lott, that Donald Rumsfeld is the first secretary of defense in a very long time to try to change the environment at the Pentagon, to retool, to shake up the bureaucracy, to build a military for future threats, et cetera, instead of relying on the same old military of the past. And this is very common, folks, when somebody comes in and starts shaking up the old guard -- and it's been that way for a long, long time -- the people getting shaken up don't like it, and they start leaking things, and they start trashing, and they start buzzing and whispering behind people's backs, and they get piled on. As a result of this, as a result of Rumsfeld's attempt to move forward and look forward he has offended many of the old bulls on Capitol Hill who claim he's not listening to people, he's not listening to his officers in the field. What Lott means is he's not listening to us in the Senate. He is listening, but he is a leader, he's not an order taker. Senators are not secretaries of defense and they are not secretaries of state and they are not presidents of the United States.
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Rumsfeld is a leader. He understands that the enemy today is different and that the force structure must address it. I tell you what, it's some of these politicians who have been in Congress for decades who don't get it, if you ask me. Talk about an old boys club, the Senate. Any senator can't get anything out of that body, can't get any legislation out of there that makes any sense. A senator, to sit there and talk about anybody else not doing a good job, this is the place where half the decent legislation in this country gets bottled up. This is the place, Senator Lott, where three Democrat senators blew up and committed a potential criminal felony by releasing the details of a covert, super-secret satellite spy plan. This is a criminal felony. Criminal referrals have been handed out to these three, Jay Rockefeller, Durbin, and Ron Wyden. Now, if the Republicans in the Senate had any gonads they would be on the prowl here trying to get these guys strung up for what they did, because you want to talk about defense and you want to talk about security, take a look at what's coming out of the U.S. Senate on the Democrat side. Instead of piling on Rumsfeld, why don't you and the Senate leadership get together and realize it's the Democrats in the Senate who are the enemy, and not Rumsfeld. That it's Al-Qaeda who is the enemy, and not Rumsfeld. And just because McCain decides to fly off the cliff for personal reasons doesn't mean you have to follow him.
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"The get-Rumsfeld crowd mostly Democrats, joined by the McCain-Hagel caucus and a few stray hawks takes great umbrage at Rumsfeld's answer to a National Guardsman's question about an insufficient number of up-armored Humvees. Hagel intoned, 'those men and women deserved a far better answer from their secretary of Defense than a flippant comment.' But Rumsfeld wasn't being flip. One wonders whether Hagel has even taken the time to read the full transcript of the secretary's remarks. The troops gave Rumsfeld a standing ovation at the end. Is it the position of the secretarys critics that the troops were too stupid to realize they had just been belittled?" And stood up and gave a standing O at the time they were flipped off? "The comment that has most angered Rumsfeld's detractors is his statement that you go to war with the Army you have. That may have been too frank in such a forum, but it was true. We went into Iraq with a military not yet fully transformed to adjust to 21st-century reality..." Because the bridge to the 21st century built by the Clinton administration did not include the military. So we had to end up facing "an insurgency launched in a harsh urban environment. If Rumsfeld's hawkish critics, some of whom were banging the drums for the Iraq war for years, thought that war could be responsibly fought only with an Army equipped with 8,000 up-armored Humvees, they had adequate time to make that known--" They had adequate time to make it happen because they control the budgets, and they control the troop levels.
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The RINOs Strike Again! Film at 11.
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Amazing, is it not? This is so typical of the breed that has infested the Congress. Armchair quarterbacks that easily point fingers and name-call, yet I don't see any of them on the ground in Iraq with an M-16....
Talk is VERY CHEAP in Washington.
Bingo. Senators Lott, Hagel and McCain had more to do with the military we went to war with than Rumsfeld did.
The Three Stooges can shove their criticism up their own asses. If there's any room there what with all the space their heads are taking up.
We're sometimes our worst enemies. Its not the Democrats that gum up the works as often as it is RINOs looking to be admired in the legacy media.
Trent Lott's allegiance as well as that of Newt Gingrich and Jack Kemp is to (first and foremost) the Lodge. Once a member, you can never walk away and quit.
"'I don't think he listens enough to his uniformed officers.' We do not pay Secretary Rumsfeld to listen to his uniformed officers. We pay him to tell his uniformed officers what to do. He listens to the Commander-in-Chief. So should the uniformed officers, who ought to notice that said Commander-in-Chief has been plinking the Cabinet Secretaries he was unhappy with, and Rumsfeld is still there. |
Uh huh. And these Senators - if they felt the military wasn't getting what it should have - all they have to do is appropriate funds so the military can be properly equipped. Its the lowest form of political grandstanding for them to suggest Rummy is not doing his job when the truth is they haven't done theirs and they damn well know it.
What's up with this? Anyone know any more about criminal proceedings against sitting senators? Sounds series.
Think of Charles Grassley doing 50 jumping jacks.
Rmmy has been trying to change the mindset and approach of the U.S military to one of fighting the low-intensity wars of the future. And some Senators think that's too much? They're ones who need to be put out to pasture not our Secretary Of Defense.
It does. Jay Rockefeller, Ron Wyden and Dick Durbin are three Democrats who have leaked U.S military secrets about a spy satellite project. And we have Republicans jumping all over Rummy instead of traitorous Democrats who are looking at prison time. You gotta wonder where the RINOs priorities are.
The Axle of Jellyfish are projecting their own incompetence onto Rumsfeld. That is the game DemocRATS play. Blame others for your own mistakes, faults and shortcomings.
Why aren't we FReeping these particular RINOS into the ground over this?
I walked precincts, worked phone banks, made contributions and was a poll challenger for the Bush campaign. I would not lift a finger, including to connect the arrows on my optically scanned ballot, for Hagel or McCain.
And there are criminal referrals resulting from their leaks?
I am beside myself over this. If the Clintonistas and other liberal Dems don't get you, these liberal Republicans will. Trent Lott and John McCain are way out of line. Rumsfeld has done a heck of a job running this war and deserves a ton of praise. There is no perfect war but it seems that Rumsfeld is expected to achieve nothing less or it's his neck. A lot of the blame for the lack of armor belongs on the Democrats who scaled back to have a "peace time" military. Clinton gutted the military and cut the active duty in half (approximately). His lowered morale with the gay issues and discipline became lax. Trent Lott is stupid to be piling up on Rumsfeld. I wish I knew their true agenda, because it sounds like they are more politically oriented and not national security oriented.
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