GOP Aid re Rumsfeld: "If he says anything arrogant, it's over."

[Iceburg]

snip ...
Rumsfeld plans to defend himself in appearances before the Senate and House Armed Services committees today. In the Senate, Republicans as well as Democrats described the appearances as critical to his survival as defense secretary, aides to key senators in both parties said.

"There's growing anger" at the sometimes prickly defense secretary, said one senior Senate Republican staff member, who agreed to discuss the mood of lawmakers on the condition that he not be named. "Republicans' instinct is to throw him a lifeline, but he's not giving them anything to deal with."

Another staff member said many Republican senators wanted to hear from Rumsfeld before criticizing him in public. Given that Rumsfeld's congressional relations have been rocky since the early days of the administration, he will have to be open, candid and responsive to senators' questions, the aide added: "If he says anything arrogant, it's over."

more ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6870-2004May6.html

[ima_sinnic]

1. it's fun to watch the thugs hang themselves (nt)

[sniffa]

2. hah!

i'm sure his "poster-sized blowup of a Pentagon press release to counter accusations that he tried to keep lawmakers in the dark about the case." won't be seen as arrogant.

'bumbLes' may just be going down afteraLL. :D

[lovedems]

3. Well, we should start with our farewells

because Rummy is arrogant to the core. He is so arrogant, he can't fake sincerity.

Ta-Ta Don.

[Katarina]

4. In that case

Rumsfeld should just stay home today because the only thing that man knows is arrogance.

[DoYouEverWonder]

I give him about 5 minutes

before his inner reptile rears it's ugly head.

[THUNDER HANDS]

5. if?

Rumsfeld couldn't give a eulogy without sounding arrogant.

[Skittles]

6. LOL

PLEASE. He BREATHES arrogance.

[bushwakker]

7. Rummy spent yesterday holed up with 4 GOP senators

Getting their story straight. Rehearsing fake outrage and contrition. The fix is in - he ain't going' anywhere.

[Mandate My Ass]

8. sometimes prickly????

talk about damning with faint praise....:eyes:

I hope that sneering blowhard asshole crashes and burns today, big time.

[Cocoa]

9. if he doesn't say anything arrogant

I'll eat my hat.

[BiggJawn]

10. "Prickly? Am I 'prickly'???"

"You betcher stupid fucking asses I am, now go fuck yourselves and leave me alone..."

I'd love for Rumsferatu to say something like that. Think that's what the "unamed aide" meant?

[Rebel_with_a_cause]

11. In that case,

it's over, indeed.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

12. Bye, Bye, Donald Blofeld.

[BeFree]

13. At noon EST let's all take a moment

Take a moment to tap into the spiritual side of ourselves and send messages to rummy asking him to be as arrogant as possible. Just be yourself, rummy. But please, try to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, if you can. Tell America everything you know.

If he does what we ask, he's looking for work, eh?

[ret5hd]

14. Shouldn't condi be there also?

i thought bush* had dropped the whole iraqi mess onto her plate a while back? why isn't she being grilled also?

[The Stranger]

15. Impeach him.

Remove him from office immediately.

[Ganja Ninja]

16. If he asks and answers his own questions fire him.

It's an indication he's insane.

[bear425]

26. Will he ask and answer his own questions?

Yes I believe he will.

[Cheswick2.0]

42. LOL

:7

[Plaid Adder]

17. So, in other words, as soon as he opens his mouth,

it's over.

I do find it difficult to believe that Rumsfeld could get through an afternoon of testimony without saying anything arrogant. So I hope the aide quoted is right.

I'm still waitin' for Bush to go down but I'd take Rummy as a consolation prize,

The Plaid Adder

[mbperrin]

18. IF?????

nt

[denverbill]

19. I've never heard him say anything that's NOT arrogant.

Him or Cheney either one. Arrogant assholes since the day the were born.

[liberalron]

20. Rumsfield is a Drunk

Power Drunk, that is. At first, one can be quite dazzling when drinking; even I admired his circumspection in answering questions from the press, in the early days.
However, as usual , after drinking too much for too long, one begins to lose control and let things slip out: Old Europe is irrelevant; American deaths are insignificant, We know where it is, etc., etc.).

[nodehopper]

21. I've read lots of weird stuff about Rummy

and how he is really hated both at the Pentagon and at the State department...he is referred to as one of the "crazies" and apparently he meddles in areas beyond his jurisdiction (well, dug), and comes up with ideas for foreign policy and bombars staff at various offices with hundreds of emails per day, which they call Rummygrams and basically regard as spam. I don't think he is capable of being humble. He really thinks he knows best. I would be so happy to see him go...more so than anyone in that administration, even more so than Cheney. Cheney is a scary robot, but Rumsfield really seems like he thinks he is the first horseman of the Apocalyple. Dr. Strangelove indeed.

[lebkuchen]

22. This is a pivotal moment, watching this self-important ass implode

Having him leave the WH is to everyone's benefit, particularly his own. He'll have more time to attend psycho-therapy sessions.

[leetrisck]

23. Baloney! Rumsfeld met with Republican senators privately

yesterday and even Democrat Ike Skeleton met with him - this is all pre-ordained - rumsfeld will do and say whatever he pleases but will try to make admin look good. Republicans will make it look like they are really being mean, Democrats will be mean, but all will still go along with the admin. bush should resign.

[jmcgowanjm]

25. Bush has created what is in effect a gulag.

"we have evidence but we can't reveal it"

There was a special women's section. There were young boys
in there. There were things done to young boys that
were videotaped. It's much worse. And the Maj. Gen.
Taguba was very tough about it. He said this place was
riddled with violent, awful actions against prisoners.


A right wing friend who was wounded in Vietnam said, "that
little girl didn't act on her own. She's a private. Privates don't
do things like that on their own. Someone told her to do
it."

Bush has created what is in effect a gulag. It stretches
from prisons in Afghanistan to Iraq, from Guantánamo to
secret CIA prisons around the world. There are perhaps
10,000 people being held in Iraq, 1,000 in Afghanistan
and almost 700 in Guantánamo,
but no one knows the
exact numbers. The law as it applies to them is whatever
the executive deems necessary. There has been nothing
like this system since the fall of the Soviet Union.

http://www.polizeros.com/

[catmandu57]

24. Can you see him biting his tongue

trying to hold back the idiocy, after he was coached and warned about it. How much longer can this house of cards keep itself propped up?

[jmcgowanjm]

29. David Gergen-Who saw these pictures? Why didn't they set off alarm bells?

And why aren't some heads going to roll within the chain
of command? There's clearly a collapse of leadership
within pieces of the chain of command. And that's what
the Congress is asking about, as well as what we know,
and I think the administration has got to be
extremely forthcoming now to deal with this and to show that
it shares the sense of horror in more than words.

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0405/05/ltm.02.html

It is a reenactment of scene that might first have been played
out in Central Europe during World War II:

"Rounded up in the raid were two attorneys, 15
schoolteachers, men in their 80's, a blind man, an elderly
man so frail he had to be carried by the soldiers – virtually
all the men of Abou Siffa. They even apprehended police
officers and three children."

Every dinar and dime was stolen from the detainees, and
all were transported to the Abu Ghraib prison, where, as of
early February, most remained.

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/

[bobthedrummer]

27. He's always acted like the REICHMARSHALL not Secretary of Defense

imo.
He's gotten a lot of people killed and maimed on his watch, and he has brought great shame and danger upon our military (and all of US) now-they've been treasonously abused imo.

[Iceburg]

28. Rummy and his legacy of umatched shame and horror

OBL remains at large, while the children of Afghanistan are largely dead or maimed.

http://www.alkhilafah.info/massacres/afghanistan/refugees.htm
Warning -- very distubing photos!

[cally]

30. Bush privately expressed support for Rumsfeld

on the day the pictures broke. Lot's more interesting stuff in that article. Here are a few more snips:

This endorsement came a day after Bush aides leaked the news that the president had scolded Rumsfeld for not telling him about the pictures. A friend of both men said yesterday that the endorsement more closely reflected the president's true feelings. The friend recalled that on April 30, as the world was digesting the first wave of photographs, Bush went to dinner at Rumsfeld's home, where a small group of guests, including Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), heard the president express his "deep appreciation" for the job Rumsfeld has been doing.

snip...

A White House official said that it is the view of a number of people close to Bush that getting rid of Rumsfeld would be "a self-inflicted political and policy wound disproportionate to the secretary's responsibility for this human failure on the part of a small number of soldiers."

snip...

According to these interviews, Bremer repeatedly raised the issue of prison conditions as early as last fall -- both in one-on-one meetings with Rumsfeld and other administration leaders, and in group meetings with the president's inner circle on national security. Officials described Bremer as "kicking and screaming" about the need to release thousands of uncharged prisoners and improve conditions for those who remained.

[tanyev]

34. Your post just triggered a memory

When was it that Bremer suddenly came back to Washington on an unannounced visit? Could the abuse of prisoners been the real reason he needed to come back and talk face to face?

[Dulcinea]

41. Boy George "scolded" Rumsfeld?

WTF does that mean?

Did he get a spanking? A timeout? No cartoons tonight? Did he hit him on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper?

The mind reels!

[Failure]

31. Are we sure we want him to go now? Personally, I'd like to see

all of them go down together..plus the last thing we need is wolfowitz in charge...he doesn't even know how many dead soldiers there are...


failure.

[bobthedrummer]

32. The neo-conservative dominated military think tanks hated President

Clinton and many officers were politicized to the point of studying the efficacy of coups.
Revolution in Political and Military Affairs/RPMA was published in 1996 by USAF INSS-note the political nature of this, in the first few sentences how President Clinton is mentioned. This "futuristic" narrative is treasonous in parts in my civilian American opinion. But many RW brass were influenced by this kind of ideology during the President Clinton era.
http://www.guerrillacampaign.com/coup.htm

This arrogance and militarism is like a new form of fascism imo.

NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.

[leesa]

33. LOL.. GOP = arrogance Not possible he won't say anything arrogant

[AspenRose]

35. When has he not said anything arrogant?

Leopards cannot change their spots.

[Art_from_Ark]

38. And skunks cannot change their scents

And Donald LePew is one of the stinkiest of them all

[Dover]

36. Ooooo tough talk! Wonder if Mel Gibson is directing this spectacle.

If you buy this phoney outrage, then you'll really enjoy the part where Rummy is raised from the dead.

[damnraddem]

37. Come on, Rummy, be yourself!

Let your arrogance drive you to throw yourself on the pyre for Dubya.

[Shopaholic]

39. Great--because I thought he was arrogant to Hillary!

Did anyone else but me think he was condescending & arrogant when he was being questioned by Sen. Clinton?

[cally]

40. Yes, he was rude to her

I turned it off at that point.