Posted on 12/21/2004 3:52:10 PM PST by PDR
The Peter Principles: Rumsfeld unfelled
By Peter Roff, UPI Senior Political Analyst
Published 12/21/2004 4:23 PM
WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- There is a growing chorus of mostly Republican legislators and pundits calling for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's head.
They won't get it, and for two reasons.
First, their complaints are falling on deaf ears.
Rumsfeld has a constituency of one, the president of the United States, and he made it quite clear at Monday's news conference that he is squarely behind Rumsfeld -- and not to give him a shove.
Second and, as things go in Washington, more importantly, Rumsfeld is made of sterner stuff than his critics. This is, after all, the man who was the chairman of Republican Bob Dole's 1996 presidential run against Bill Clinton, a fool's errand if ever there was one. Rumsfeld handled defeat with grace and did not, as other campaign strategists do, organize post-election analyses favorable to him at the candidate's expense.
Not long after Rumsfeld agreed to a second tour of duty at the Pentagon -- he was also secretary of defense under President Ford -- the long knives pointed at his scalp appeared. Small wonder. The president entrusted him with the difficult job of transforming the departmental culture so the U.S. military could meet the demands of 21st-century warfare. Facing stiff opposition from entrenched military and civil service bureaucracies, Rumsfeld is well on his way to completing the task.
Those knives continued to appear intermittently, carving out an unpersuasive case that Rumsfeld is a political liability. A few examples:
-- Rumsfeld's clashes with outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell almost always had a pro-Powell cast. They hinted broadly that, if push came to shove, Powell would stay and Rumsfeld would go. We know how that turned out.
-- The ideological media on the left and the right -- the ones who use the word "neocon" as a synonym for Jew -- argued Rumsfeld's senior Pentagon staff engineered the war in Iraq for the benefit of Israeli national security, not the United States'.
-- Rumsfeld got the blame for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and for just about everything else that has gone wrong in Iraq since the end of the war.
Everyone was so sure he was on his way out that, after the White House announced Rumsfeld had been asked to stay on, the shock was so profound you could hear a pin drop in newsrooms across the nation's capital for at least five minutes -- but even that did not stop the guessing games.
Until last week the rumor de jour was that Rumsfeld would stay on, but only until the Iraqi elections at the end of January; then, it was bye-bye. From what the president said Monday, he's not in on that plan so, for Rumsfeld's critics, it's on to a new line of attack: He is insensitive.
Why one would prefer a "sensitive" SecDef over a warrior is anyone's guess. Rumsfeld's GOP critics -- who include dovish Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, Arizona's mercurial John McCain and Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol -- turned up the volume after Rumsfeld explained to a group of Tennessee national guardsmen stationed in Kuwait that it is not always possible to go into battle with "the army you might want or wish to have."
It was part of a candid answer to a loaded question planted by a Tennessee newspaper reporter looking to draw blood. Its premise, that troops had been poorly equipped with unarmored Humvees (the replacement for the Jeep) because of callous indifference by the Defense Department, was long on symbolism and short on facts. Rumsfeld -- in a demonstration of directness that McCain, late of the "Straight Talk Express" should find instructive -- told the troops that the lack of properly armored Humvees was neither a matter of will or desire but one of production and capability. The troops gave him a standing ovation.
Further research showed the situation was not nearly as dire as the question suggested. Rumsfeld had again been given a bum rap via sound bite. The truth of his observation, "As you know, you have to go to war with the army you have," should be unremarkable to any student of U.S. history. They know full well that Franklin Roosevelt did not tell the U.S. Congress and the world on Dec. 8, 1941, that a state of war would exist with the empire of Japan as soon as the U.S. Navy built six more aircraft carriers.
Adding to the rap is the revelation that Rumsfeld does not personally sign the letters of condolence sent over his signature to the families of U.S. servicemen killed in Iraq. After that story leaked out it was not at all surprising to see that 52 percent of U.S. adults, according to a poll published Tuesday by USA Today, want Rumsfeld gone.
The proper response to the data in my view is, "So what?" The number is meaningless; yet another example of an under-informed public passing judgment on an issue they have not thought through clearly but are instead reacting on an emotional level to media manipulation.
None of this, however, likely matters to Rumsfeld, who exhibited great bravery and cool-headedness on Sept. 11, 2001, going to the place where the hijacked jet had been crashed into the Pentagon to see what assistance he could provide. He is, as that one example indicates, made of sterner stuff than his critics.
Rumsfeld has thick skin and a reservoir of considerable political and intellectual support among the president's base. He also, it should be remembered, has enough money to be doing just about anything he wanted to do in private life. Instead, at an age when many of his contemporaries are sitting on the lanai, enjoying the balmy afternoon breezes on Florida's Atlantic Coast, Rumsfeld has agreed to remain in what may be the third- or fourth-toughest job in the U.S. government.
It will take a lot more than some Capitol Hill crankiness to dislodge him from his post.
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(The Peter Principles explores issues in national and local politics, U.S. culture and the media. It is written by Peter Roff, UPI political analyst and 20-year veteran of the Washington scene.)
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(Please send comments to nationaldesk@upi.com.)
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Rummy has my vote.
Rumsfeld is the best damn SecDef this country has had. I am sick of the attacks by the left and weak Republicans on him.
Sadly true.
He has my vote, too.
Bump for later. Thanks. That made my day.
Rumsfeld is the best damn SecDef this country has had. I am sick of the attacks by the left and weak Republicans on him.
I agree. He and the troops he commands has both Afganistan and Iraq under their belt. In addition he and his forces are credited for nabbing Saddam and 74% of the former Iraqi leadership, and numerous captures or killings of other key terrorist leaders (Osama your next!).
All this BS has nothing to do with Rumsfield
It is the dems way of attacking and trying to Neuter BUSH
Same here. We wouldn't let the MSM do in the President and we shouldn't let them do in Rummy.
Frace's collective ears are still ringing. LOL
The democrats are predictably piling on the issue.
But you are forgeting the republicans, especially the neo-con variety who are leading the charge to oust Rumsfeld.
The neo-cons are the ones who hatched the plan to invade Iraq with promises of a "cakewalk" and of citizens throwing flowers at the troops.
Now when things are not going as promised they are looking for a fall guy and Rumsfeld is the one.
Frace's collective ears are still ringing. LOL
LOL yep! I can only imagine the look on france;s collective faces when George W. Bush was reelected! :D
I bet the DUmmies have had a collective heart attack over this (after all they are still recovering from their party's defeat back in November).</p>
The foreign and domestic enemies of this country have a major adversary in Bush and Rummy.
Yep and they have been collectivly pwn3d (owned as a lot of PC gamers say) by Bush and Rummy! :D
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