Posted on 08/04/2006 6:30:08 AM PDT by governsleastgovernsbest
by Mark Finkelstein
August 4, 2006 - 09:07
Was Matt Lauer showing balance in criticizing Hillary Clinton along with Donald Rumsfeld this morning - or was his skepticism about Hillary simply voicing the view of the Murtha/Lamont wing of the Dem party?
The focus was yesterday's Senate-hearing mano a mano between Hillary and Rumsfeld and her subsequent call for the president to accept the Defense Secretary's resignation.
Interviewing all-purpose commentator Howard Fineman, Lauer seemed insistent that it was time for Rumsfeld to go.
Lauer: "[Clinton] said the president should accept Rumsfeld's resignation. He lost credibility with Congress and the people. It's time for him to step down. This is not the first person to call for his resignation, but at some point, do you think it's a possibility especially in the near term?"
Fineman held his fire: "Well, the Democrats will try to make it that."
That wasn't good enough for Matt: >"If all parties agree that the war with Iraq is going badly and you have Tom Friedman from the New York Times saying it's obvious we are baby-sitting a civil war. You have [General] John Abizaid saying sectarian violence is as bad as he has ever seen it and we could be heading into a civil war. When will the ax fall at what point is the president backed into a corner and has to get rid of Rumsfeld?"
Fineman: "I don't know when that times or if it comes. George W.Bush is nothing if not loyal."
Lauer: "But, nothing if not loyal, however when the Katrina response was a disaster Mike Brown went. When scandals rocked the white house, Andy Card went. We got John Snow going. It does happen."
Keep hope alive, Matt!
Fineman finally lobbed Lauer a crumb: "It does happen. It will take Rumsfeld's decision or the appearance of it being Rumsfeld's decision for it to happen. It's clear where the dynamics of the politics are headed, right at Rumsfeld right now. I don't know when it could happen. It could happen. I doubt that it will happen before the election. But it's only August. There is plenty of time between now and November."
But if Howard was reluctant to second Matt's Rummy-must-go pitch, he required no arm-twisting when it came to characterizing Hillary's attack on Rumsfeld as a cynical maneuver.
Lauer: "Hillary Clinton gets to stand up at the hearings and be firm with Rumsfeld. That gets her the headlines this morning. How much of what Jim Miklaszewski said is true, that she is going a long way and doing grandstanding to repair the damage she did with the anti-war liberals in the past?"
Fineman: "She is trying hard. Hillary is balanced as a political figure. Always trying to find the exact middle of where she wants to go. Where she wants to go is the Democratic nomination. She has been calibrating it all along. . . Hillary is talking to her husband. He is sensing what the politics are."
Rush Limbaugh often asserts that the political skills of The Smartest Woman in the World are overrated. Might Rush not be on to something when two leading MSM lights cast her as transparently calculating?
Today Show/NewsBusters calculating-Clinton ping.
The best thing Bush and Rummy can do is ignore Hillary. The rest of seem to do better when we do that.
Gee, I wasn't aware Friedman had his own intelligence agency reporting to him so as to impart HIS feeeeeeelings on the war.
It's always darkest before the dawn.
It seems lately, every time a dumbocrat gets all excited that they are REALLY hurting Bush now - it comes back and bites them in the behind. They are fighting back just like the terrorists - indiscriminate lies and attacks - to get the photo ops and sound bites that their masses feed on.
Come to think of it, the muzzies and the dummies have a lot in common.......
No big revelation, there ... but in a time of war, who would support someone without ideas, values or principles? All she wants is power.
And millions of Americans would gladly give her power to rule over us all.
Rumsfeld should have replied to Clinton in this fashion:
"Senator, the military situation in Iraq is more difficult than one that can be handled on the phone while getting a hummer from an intern."
I would love to see Matt and the gang handle that!
I love this line. This is classic lib speak.
If all parties agree that the war with Iraq is going badly
Memo to Mr. Lauer. Not all parties agree the war in Iraq is going badly. Only the libs that encompass his entire universe.
And you have Tom Friedman from the New York Times saying it's obvious we are baby-sitting a civil war
The NY Times commenting that something about war is obvious? There are so many insults to throw here I don't even know where to begin.
My hat is off to you man...I don't know how you sat through that whole thing without throwing something through the TV.
Also, it was delicious watching Rumsfeld take the witch on! Her boring, deadpan reading, and then his lively reply (even got one in about her "prepared statement"). Notice, he took a few notes, but most of his response was straight off the cuff.
I love him!
If I were the committee chairman, I would never let Hildebeast have the floor.
July 24, 2003
"I don't do quagmires."
Feb. 7, 2003
"It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." —to U.S. troops in Aviano, Italy
Nov. 15, 2002
"The idea that it's going to be a long, long, long battle of some kind I think is belied by the fact of what happened in 1990," he said on an Infinity Radio call-in program. "Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that."
Amazing isn't it how the Bush administration's flunkies are never willing to stand up to their own past prognistications about Iraq, the economy, or anything else!
Wasn't it Sec. Rumsfield, however, who also said early on that we were in for "a long, hard slog"?
The President, George W. Bush, has not asked Donald Rumsfeld to resign, regardless of what the Shadow President has asked for.
For, you understand, there is a nearly complete Shadow Government, consisting of all the Dem'crat incumbents, the Dem'crat candidates for offices now held by Republican incumbents, and a wide pool of potential appointees to various administrative and judicial positions. They carry on business, just as if they actually were in control, and negotiate with both domestic and foreign power brokers just like they had the authority. They make pronouncements and take positions that, if not directly and diametrically opposed to the announced objectives of the Bush Administration, are designed to blunt and dissuade the implementation of those objectives.
In short, they sabotage the business of America, and in doing so, substantially change the interpretation of what it is to be an American. Republicans, foolish creatures they are, insist on remembering a different vision of America, a Norman Rockwell, Ozzie and Harriet, hometown America, if you will, while the Dem'crats, particularly the phony liberal Dem'crats, seem to want to move more and more swiftly into a world that can only see unending despair and grief as the daily expectations for all men. They may SAY they want someting different, but that dark vision shall be the end result of every choice they expect to make.
I just can't take that idiot Lauer anymore. His ramblings are almost incoherent. He has really ratcheted up his idiocy since the Affable Eva Braun left the set.
Me too. What all of these people (pundits and Senators) seem to forget is Rummy serves at the pleasure of the President and "The Decider" has decided that he will remain as Secretary of Defense.
The Iraqi "Civil War" is the week's talking point for the Leftist/communists/liberal/democrats. John Stewart was talking on his stupid show last night and was saying almost the same words used here.
Speaking of prognostications, the MSM has been alleging that Iraq's been in the middle of a civil war for months. So why is this suddenly news?
Thanks for the recap.
Guess it's been a long loom.
Resident crank alert.
Put that bullshit you wrote into some kind of context you freak.
You're very welcome. It's my - twisted - pleasure, as always ;-)
Of course, that may be wishful thinking on my part - I never thought her buffoon of a husband had a chance in 1992 against a statesman and war hero. Again, thanks to the little "hand grenade with a bad haircut" megalomaniac from Texas - a lot of the blame for what we are enduring now can be traced to him, his ego trip and his virulent hatred of the Bush family.
Here Here. Excellent
.... and so does Billy Jeff Clinton
Gee, I hope I'm not too late on this obviousness.
;-)
Five weeks or five months certainly does not sound anything like "a long, hard slog", does it?
When you have a person in a responsible position like Rumsfeld who has issued so many contradictory pronouncements together with a large quantity of totally indecipherable BS, the only logical conclusion for Senator Hillary Clinton and other U.S. senators is that Rummy doesn't know what the heck he is doing and that he is trying to cover up for his incompetence and Bush's.
Rummy should have resigned long ago so that an adult could take over his job. We need to reduce carnage in Iraq among American soldiers and innocent Iraqi citizens needlessly killed every day in this counterproductive war based upon Bush administration lies.
Five weeks or five months certainly does not sound anything like "a long, hard slog", does it?
When you have a person in a responsible position like Rumsfeld who has issued so many contradictory pronouncements together with a large quantity of totally indecipherable BS, the only logical conclusion for Senator Hillary Clinton and other U.S. senators is that Rummy doesn't know what the heck he is doing and that he is trying to cover up for his incompetence and Bush's.
Rummy should have resigned long ago so that an adult could take over his job. We need to reduce carnage in Iraq among American soldiers and innocent Iraqi citizens needlessly killed every day in this counterproductive war based upon Bush administration lies.
"Senator, the military situation in Iraq is more difficult than one that can be handled on the phone while getting a hummer from an intern."
Ann Coulter would say it. And there would be just as much disagreement from some here at FR by her saying it, as there would be by Rumsfeld saying it.
IBTZ!
Bye, troll. Enjoy DUmmie land!
They do this BS EVERY election cycle
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