Posted on 02/17/2006 2:03:38 PM PST by Libloather
heh heh... gotta love it when rumsfeld bashes the government.
"Yes. Does David Gregory have a question he didn't ask three days ago?"
If I were the State Department, I would develop a brutal sense of humor. I would focus that sense of humor, not on religious icons, but on leaders. I would lampoon those leaders in a way that nobody in the society is allowed to do. I would empower the people by being their voice by proxy. I would eliminate fear by laughing at it.
Underneath it all would be the message of freedom, because we do what they are unable to do for themselves. When the propagandists are wrong, make fun of them for it. When they are right, make fun of them for it. When they are silent, make fun of them for it.
The government's public affairs system is antiquated, he said, working mostly on an eight-hour, five-days-a-week schedule that cannot keep up with the rest of the world.
That, and most people assigned to PAO duty are put there because commanders fear that they might screw up something "really important." You tend to get the same sort of flacks that failing corporations have -- giggling, dizzy blonde bimbos. At the Pentagon they do understand this enough to make combat officers the senior spokesmen. But at the unit and post level, where a "career" PAO is not in place, the PAO is usually the most expendable officer, and the career" PAOs are among the least intelligent, least well read, and worst-educated officers and NCOs in the military.
(For reasons I don't know, maybe because their mission is always "on," the Coast Guard is an exception. When a Coast Guard PAO addresses the media or public, he or she has the facts in hand, and the background knowledge to explain the facts. And they're usually very junior people. Maybe the other services need to send some people to learn from the Coasties).
d.o.l
Criminal Number 18F
Brit Hume?
My thought exactly. I think Rumsfeld was subtley suggesting the same.
"Yes. Does David Gregory have a question he didn't ask three days ago?"
You will only understand the symbolism of the following if you learned
through extraneous history or were old enough to have watched it play out
that Ted Kennedy drove off of a bridge in Massachusetts on his way to an
island with Mary Joe Kopechne in the late 60's.
He did NOT seek help to rescue her when he surfaced. Instead he made his
way to a hotel, called friends and the next morning reported the accident.
She was, needless to say, both dead and wet. Kennedy faced no type of
any censure or reprimand, much less any legal punishment for this negligent
act of manslaughter.
Kennedy power extends wide in that part of America. You have got to the
chutzpah of Rumsfeld.
February 05, 2004
Rumsfeld: Kennedy 'All Wet' About Bush Lies
(5 Feb 2004) -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Sen Edward M.
Kennedy yesterday that he was "all wet" when the Senator alleged that the
Bush administration lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to
justify
going to war.
The verbal clash came during Mr. Rumsfeld's testimony at a Senate Armed
Services Committee hearing probing the state of pre-war intelligence.
Sen. Kennedy began his questioning of the Defense Secretary by saying,
"Don't you think some members of the Bush administration should be held
legally accountable for the lies they told about Iraqi weapons, and the
subsequent cover-up?"
"First, with all due respect Senator Kennedy, you're all wet," said Mr.
Rumsfeld . "The administration has not lied or covered up. However, in
general I do believe that when a man commits a crime he should face the
bar
of justice. He should not be allowed to serve in positions of power in our
government, and be hailed as a leader, when the question of his guilt
remains unresolved, if you know what I mean."
"I'm sure I do not know what you mean," Mr. Kennedy said. "But the
American
people deserve to know why you can't find Saddam's weapons of mass
destruction."
"Sometimes things are hard to find, even when you know where they are,"
said
Mr. Rumsfeld. "For example, I've heard of a man who missed a bridge and
drove his car into the water, even though he knew where the bridge was.
And
then sometimes you just keep diving into a problem and despite repeated
efforts, you come up empty handed. That doesn't mean that nothing's
there.
As you know, eventually, the truth comes to light."
Having no further questions, Mr. Kennedy yielded the remainder of his
time.
Spokespeople do not necessarily have to be servicemembers.
Maybe the brown-suiters ought to specialize in imagery, and take a lot of high-quality pics and make them easily accessible for those who would voluntarily disseminate them.
Would they? Could they?
Related:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1580796/posts
Military Needs Flexibility to Fight Terror, Rumsfeld Says
Care to explain your reasoning? I want to hear this.
"Al-Qaida and other Islamic extremist groups have poisoned the Muslim public's view of the United States..."
"Big Media in the United States does their part to help..."
... and extremists in the Democrat party and on the left in America do as well.
An Unholy Trinity.
Thanks for the ping!
excellent!!,I suppose it won't run the Times Discovery channel anytime soon
LMAO!!
Good link on Iran. can't find any fault with the reasoning there. It would be nice if we could help fuel a resistence movement in Iran.
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