Comments on: Rumsfeld: The Reckoning

By: barker13

barker13 — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:53:00 +0000

Re: Danbmil99; 2:44 PM --

Well... I don't know what you mean by "trollbait," but I notice you keep on backing away from your original argument.

(*WINK*)

In any case, even if I grant you the "style over substance" argument with "Professor" Obama vs. "Palin the Wolf Killer," I certainly wouldn't put them in the same club resume wise absent Obama's political victory to win the presidency.

Palin is - and was - a Governor. She had actual executive responsibilities. Obama was a freshman U.S. Senator, on junior member of a "club" of 100 where few exercise individual power in a way where one can easily measure any result other than pork coming into a particular state.

(*SHRUG*)

As to Rumsfeld and Cheney....

(*SNORT*)

Jeez... using YOUR criteria Rummy and Darth stand head and shoulders over Obama. I'd love to see a debate between Obama and Biden vs. Rummy and Darth!

(*SMILE*)

As to Bush...

(*BILL EXISTS THE BUILDING*)

(*CHUCKLE*)

Ya got me.

BILL

By: danbmil99

danbmil99 — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:44:47 +0000

Ignoring all the pointless trollbait --

Let me rephrase. I agree credentials can be bs. What differentiates say Obama from say Palin, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush, is a combination of intelligence, a reasoned temperament, and plain old common sense.

When a team fumbles as many balls as the last admin did, it's a pointless exercise in futility to argue for their competence.

And Sarah Palin as President... Really?

By: barker13

barker13 — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:41:33 +0000

Re: Chephren; 12:09 PM --

"I remember articles in Newsweek and elsewhere about "Rumsfeld's Rules", about what a tough, take-no-prisoners guy he was."

Yep. I remember those days too. Hell... remember the SNL skits that basically GLORIFIED both Rummy and Cheney (and even laughed WITH Bush as opposed to AT Bush) following 9/11?

(*SIGH*)

Remember Rumsfeld refusing to be taken to a secure location in the moments after the Pentagon was hit (with no one knowing if follow-up attacks were imminent) and instead physically helping with the wounded...?

I do.

A nation of Rummy's may screw up, but, yeah... a nation of Frums... worrisome indeed.

BILL

By: barker13

barker13 — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:33:24 +0000

Re: Danbmil99; 11:46 AM --

"But the crux of my point stands..."

(*GRIN*) You keep on telling yourself that, Dan! (*WINK*)

"...Bush is anti-intellectual, and tended to hire people and tust them using his gut rather than his head."

But... but... but... what of the neocon cabal...?!?!

"Anti-intellectual...?!?!" The neocons WERE the intellectuals...!!!

Rumsfeld attended Princeton on academic scholarship as well as receiving a NROTC scholarship. Last time I checked, Princeton's one of them thar poison ivy league university type... er... places. You know... the kind of places really... er... smart people... er... go.

Cheney got into Yale (having grown up in Wyoming!) and while it's true he partied himself out of there pretty damned quickly the guy did go on to get a BA, Masters, and start work on a Doctorate which he never finished.

Seriously, dude... some of these inferences you're throwing around about other peoples intelligence just... er... doesn't wash.

Again, Dan... and I'm trying to TEACH you something here... it's not that conservatives are "anti-intellectual," it's that we're "anti-bullshit."

Me? I follow Charles Murray and James Q. Wilson, Camile Paglia and...

(*SMILE*) You get the idea. Do you get the point...???

Krugman has a Nobel prize. OK. He's still wrong far more often than he's right.

Tom Friedman has what... three Pulitzer prizes...? Half the time I just roll my eyes when I read his ever changing as the wind blows recycled output.

Is Friedman a smart, knowledgeable guy? Sure. Is Krugman? Sure - and once he starts mixing numbers and letters he's sure to impress. (*SMILE*) Still... again... the disdain for CERTAIN "intellectuals" is based upon how "right" one thinks they are.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I'd guess the average liberal arts conservative respects the average engineering student or even business student (anyone who has to do math!) more than the average liberal arts liberal. If so, does that make the average liberal arts liberal "anti-intellectual?"

"...(Harriet Meyers for Supreme? Really?)..."

I'm with you there, Dan! As I like to put it...

"...yeah... I knew Bush had lost his frigg'n mind when he tried to appoint his third grade art teacher to a seat on the Supreme Court."

(*SMILE*) (*HANDSHAKE*)

Finally... as to your clip...

(*SNORT*)

Com'on... at least be intellectually honest; that was a pro-McCain "From side of the Party" reporter serving as a mouthpiece for the McCain/Frum side of the GOP.

(*SMILE*) (*SNICKER*)

BILL

By: chephren

chephren — Thu, 21 May 2009 16:09:23 +0000

It is terribly ironic to read this article. Frum, Bush's former speechwriter, and for years a determined cheerleader for the war in Iraq, now proposes a "reckoning" for the errors of Rumsfeld?

Excuse me? Where were you back in the day? The very qualities of Rumsfeld criticized in this post - obfuscation, ruthlessness, stubbornness, a talent for bureaucratic infighting - are the same ones he was celebrated for at the time of the invasion. I remember articles in Newsweek and elsewhere about "Rumsfeld's Rules", about what a tough, take-no-prisoners guy he was. It was Don's way or the highway, and that was how the administration - and the conservative press - liked it.

Conservatives loved the guy. And now they're supposed to 'reckon' with the errors of Rumsfeld's ways?

Are Conservatives 'reckoning' with domestic spying without warrants? With trashing Clinton's budget surpluses and doubling the national debt? With the marginalization of their own party?

Whole lot of reckoning to be done around here, I'd say.

By: danbmil99

danbmil99 — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:46:04 +0000

sinz54: "danbmil99: Bush in 2000 had better credentials than Obama in 2008."

Actually, you have a point. I'd say it's about a wash, though I do count executive experience as something important, so maybe GWB has an edge there. It's certainly true that intellectuals can f* up a country (that guy from Georgia [the one near Russia] comes to mind).

But the crux of my point stands, which is that Bush is anti-intellectual, and tended to hire people and trust them using his gut rather than his head. Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Brownie come to mind as three examples of how that worked out for him. Not only did he have bad instincts when it came to picking people (Harriet Meyers for Supreme? Really?) -- he also stuck with them way too long, when it was obvious to everyone else in the world that they were incompetent or worse. (lately rumors have circulated that he was laughing along with 'Darth Vader' jokes about Cheney towards the end...)

As to Sarah P, all I can say is -- really?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWZHTJsR4Bc

By: barker13

barker13 — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:05:47 +0000

Re: Dragonlady; wrote 34 minutes ago --

I too notice we're getting more cranks here. Perhaps they mistake NM for the Slate comments forum or perhaps online letters to the editor of the New York Times.

(*CHUCKLE*)

BILL

By: barker13

barker13 — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:01:03 +0000

Re: Danbmil99; 1:49 AM --

"...the GOP managed to nominate a VP who DIDN'T KNOW THAT AFRICA WAS A CONTINENT."

Dan. I'm more of a sarcastic, condescending s.o.b than a name caller, but for you...

Are you a frigg'n idiot...???

Seriously.

I'm not saying you can't attack Palin... I'm just saying don't sound like a damned fool via spreading nonsense like the above cut quote. (And especially not using all caps!)

(*SNORT*)

I'd be quite happy if Gov. Palin were President today; happier in fact than if my other choices included McCain as well as Obama.

(*SHRUG*)

Palin clearly has a much better grasp of real world as well as governmental economics than either the serving President or the Senator from Arizona - who admitted his ignorance... amazingly enough seemingly without much embarrassment after having spent decades as a congressman and senator.

(*SIGH*)

"But please, credentials count for something. Sarah Palin could not have become a law professor at Harvard. She is simply not cut from the same cloth."

Hmm... you know much about Woodrow Wilson?

How'bout Carter? Annapolis? And HE had business experience too!

I agree with you. I can't see Palin as an academic. But I don't take the same lesson from that as you do apparently. (*SHRUG*)

"There is a strange, deep-seated anti-intellectualism in the DNA of the GOP."

Not so. Better to say there's an entirely understandable and justifiable disdain for intellectualism that... er... ain't all that "intellectual" if by "intellectual" you mean favoring the RIGHT POLICIES over the WRONG POLICIES.

(*SMILE*)

You familiar with Newt Gingrich? "Anti-intellectual...???"

(*SNORT*)

Dick Armey? Phil Gramm?

Dan... seriously... at best you're... er... oversimplifying.

"Well, the last election shows..."

That eight years of Bush, six of which featured an often corrupt and usually fiscally irresponsible RINO Congress, the beacon of Hope and Change couldn't manage to win a Nixon or Reagan style landslide.

(*SHRUG*)

Dan. We've been over this. Over this and over this. You can't beat something with nothing and in many respects... McCain was less than nothing as opposed to Obama.

Hey. Maybe if Palin had been on the top of the ticket and had campaigned against both the RINOs (and Bushism) and Democrats as far as TARP and bailouts and Stimulus Plans were concerned President Obama would still be Senator Obama.

Hey... it also could have worked out that Obama won emulating Johnson's victory over Goldwater! We'll never know. But at least there would have been a REPUBLICAN vs. DEMOCRAT presidential race as opposed to a "real" Democrat vs. John McCain (of the House of Bush) race.

(*SHRUG*)

We tried McCain in '08. Let's try a conservative in '12 and see what happens. We KNOW what happened to McCain.

BILL

By: barker13

barker13 — Thu, 21 May 2009 14:33:16 +0000

Re: Sinz54; 1:44 PM --

Well... we're never know, Sinz. Perhaps you're right, perhaps you're not; either way it's alternate history, not reality. I gave my views in light of what was - in light of reality. (*SHRUG*)

Re: Sinz54; 2:04 PM --

"What should we do about Afghanistan-Pakistan?"

And that's the $64,000 question. (Pre-Inflation.) (*WINK*)

I'm thinking "less is more" is about the best we can do, particularly in Afghanistan. Keep a low profile. Play whack-a-mole. (*SHRUG*) We're just NOT going to turn Afghanistan into a "civilized" "real" country. It is what it is - tribal warlords... religious fanatics... opium lords and peasants... a bit too much "diversity" for the US or the West to "remake."

Pakistan...??? (*SIGH*) A different story. The thing is... short/mid/longterm... it's INDIA we need as our friend and ally.

As wasteful and long term counterproductive as it is, I see no choice but to basically keep to a carrot/stick approach heavily tilted to the Pakistani military.

For what it's worth... just based on the small amount of research I've done... it would be no picnic (and perhaps beyond our capacity) to forcibly disarm Pakistan in terms of their nukes.

(*SHRUG*) (*FROWN*)

"Is a pre-emptive strike still a good option to take out Iran's nuclear facilities?"

We simply don't have access to that info, Sinz. I sure as hell hope so though! In any case, Israel would have to take the lead and the brunt of the backlash.

I doubt they could pull it off without our cooperation... but again... we simply don't have the factual knowledge to know for sure. (*SHRUG*)

"If Iran test-fires a nuclear bomb, is any military option gone at that point?"

No. Not at all.

(BTW... how exactly would Iraq test a nuclear weapon? Think geography.) (*SHRUG*)

BILL

By: dragonlady

dragonlady — Thu, 21 May 2009 14:27:32 +0000

j_mcdouglas, your comments are absolutely loathsome. Repubs and Dems may disagree on policies and philosophy, but for you to hurl personal attacks by categorizing the entire GOP as a bunch of bigots is quite self-revealing. It’s truly a spectacle to see someone try to pump up their own ideology and by extension, their self-image by demeaning others.