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by Mark Finkelstein January 3, 2006 - 07:58 Katie Couric's just-completed interview with NY Times Reporter James Risen, who broke the NSA surveillance story and is now publishing his book on the matter, 'State of War,' offered a treasure-trove of insights into the matter. And give Katie a gentlelady's 'C' for her questioning. Couric earned the bulk of her credit by posing this seminal line of questioning: "Did [the leakers] have any sympathy or understanding about this new climate this country finds itself in and the criticism the Bush administration took prior to 9/11 for not putting the pieces together...

My high school physics teacher used to tell us that in order to understand physics you first had to be curious.   His First Directive was “wonder about things.”  I bring this up only because it is a source of constant amazement to me how uncurious everyone around Big White is - and by “everyone”  I do mean EVERYWON. They receive a lot of information in their newsfeed that they tweet, text and Instagram on to others, along with an original witticism when the spirit moves them. If the “news” comes from a trusted source, i.e. somebody in their Twittersphere, they...

Tragically, all we’ve fought for in Iraq, all that 4,500 American lives were shed to gain, is on the cusp, potentially, of vanishing. - Mitt Romney, “Ideas Summit,” 6/13/2014 All we fought for in Iraq. All we fought for in Iraq is on the cusp of vanishing. That’s what Mitt Romney says. We fought for. We fought for. We. Oh, so it’s we now, is it, Mitt? We. I must have missed you over there, but it was a busy place. We. The guy who helped set up “pro-draft” rallies and yet somehow managed to avoid service in Vietnam is...

Reader responses to my column about this year's commencement follies ranged widely, as always. But there were nonetheless certain patterns. The most common one was this: indifference about Brandeis dumping Ayaan Hirsi Ali, irritation at protesters for persuading Christine Lagarde to back out of speaking at Smith, and lots of support for those who got Condoleezza Rice to cancel her appearance at the Rutgers graduation ceremony. Why were many readers cheered by the outcome in Condi's case but not the others? Because she's a "war criminal." To which my response is: No, she isn't. I say this to the legion...

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld filed his taxes on Tuesday with an added twist: a letter telling the IRS that he had no idea whether his return was, in fact, accurate. “Despite the fact that I am a college graduate and I try hard to make sure our tax returns are accurate...I know that I do not know whether or not my tax returns are accurate, which is a sad commentary on governance in our nation's capital," Rumsfeld's letter reads.The letter’s phrasing appears to allude to Rumsfeld’s famous “unknown unknowns” statement in 2002, when he said, in reference to...

Donald Rumsfeld: 'It does not take a genius' By: Tal Kopan March 25, 2014 06:13 AM EDT Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is blasting the Obama administration’s handling of Afghanistan, saying a “trained ape” could have done a better job in diplomatic relations with the country. “We have status of forces agreements probably with 100, 125 countries in the world,” Rumsfeld said Monday night on “On the Record with Greta van Susteren” on Fox News. “This administration, the White House and the State Department, have failed to get a status of forces agreement. A trained ape could get a status...

(CNSNews.com) - Donald Rumsfeld, who served as U.S. Defense Secretary under President George W. Bush, blames poor diplomacy by the Obama administration for the current strained relations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai."Our relationship with Karzai and with Afghanistan was absolutely first-rate in the Bush administration," Rumsfeld told Fox News's Greta Van Susteren on Monday. "It has gone down hill like a toboggan ever since the Obama administration came in."

Donald Rumsfeld, a man who doesn’t mince his words, placed the blame for the Benghazi disaster squarely on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an interview posted by Breitbart TV on Thursday. ~excerpt~ http://blog.heritage.org/2014/02/15/rumsfeld-clinton-responsible-lack-protection-benghazi/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

When I was in high school, one of my part-time jobs was driving a hotel van to and from the airport for the Howard Johnson in Skokie, Illinois, a suburb just north of Chicago. It was a great job. I got to know a ton of different types of people. To this day, it’s the second favorite job I ever had. One type of person that I got to know driving to and from O’Hare International Airport were pharmaceutical sales reps from a company, also headquartered in Skokie, called Searle Pharmaceutical. Searle, like a lot of companies in the...

Donald Rumsfeld on Obama: ‘I Begin with Incompetence as a Problem’ Talking to journalist David Samuels about his Kindle Singles interview with the former secretary of defense. Lee Smith October 4, 2013 7:31 AM David Samuels’ deeply reported oddball narratives and profiles have appeared on the covers of Harper’s, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, and other magazines. Samuels has also contributed two long interviews for Amazon’s new Kindle Singles series: The first with Israeli President Simon Peres, and his most recent with former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (available here, and Rumsfeld has also just published a new book, Rumsfeld's...

 Oh-oh! As reported by both leftist and righteous on-line sources, Syrian rebels have admitted to using chemical weapons in pursuit of Osama Bin Laden’s directive to kill women and children. This doesn’t sound good for the regime, the Syrian regime I mean, butt since you brought it up, it doesn’t sound good for our regime either. The Cheese stands aloneAccordingly, war plans are kind of stalled for the moment, as they are being re-tooled (by the hour, as reported by Pentagon sources). Indeed, there’s even a growing lack of enthusiasm among our former varsity cheer leading squad: Rather than rallying...

Rumsfeld Slams Obama On Syria, Calls Him Weakest President In His Lifetime By M. Alex Johnson Deriding President Barack Obama as the weakest president "in my adult lifetime," former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called on the White House on Tuesday to fish or cut bait in Syria. Rumsfeld said there could be no middle ground in Syria: "You either ought to change the regime, or you ought to do nothing," he said during a question-and-answer session after a lecture at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Mich. In his customarily colorful way, Rumsfeld, 81, picked away at...

The story of yesterday's parliamentary vote in Kyrgyzstan to annul the lease of the U.S. air base there included an intriguing subplot: the presence of ex-U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in Bishkek. Officially, he was there on the business of the Rumsfeld Foundation, a group that offers short-term fellowships to young scholars from Central Asia and the Caucasus to study in Washington, D.C. And the timing of the visit, at the same time as the parliamentary vote, was just a coincidence. But as anyone following Central Asian politics knows, there is no such thing as coincidence. And the Kyrgyzstan...

<p>Unearthed by James Carter IV (of the "President Carter" Carters and the 47 percent video) and first shared by Talking Points Memo is this bit of video amazement. In it, Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense under Bush, jokingly suggests that he "can't tell" if maybe President Obama now wants the terrorists to win the War on Terror.</p>

The Talk Shows May 19th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Pfeiffer, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Rep. David Camp, R-Mich.; Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif.; former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Pfeiffer, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas; Sen. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah; Associated Press President and CEO Gary Pruitt.THIS WEEK (ABC): Pfeiffer; Sen. Robert Menendez, D- N.J.; Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio; Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga.; Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Pfeiffer, Sen. Rand...

This is an administration in which the lawyers, academics and the wordsmiths who populate their ranks characterize acts of terrorism as “man-caused disasters” and the Fort Hood killings as “workplace violence.” They use phrases like “leading from behind,” or “transnational governance” and “pooling” our nation’s sovereignty with other countries. They seem to believe America’s policies should be based on an international consensus of the nations that dominate the U.N. General Assembly, instead of on our Constitution and the decisions of our elected representatives Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz28Fu2j7jS

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld attacked libertarians on Wednesday, suggesting their anti-interventionist positions would result in a more a dangerous world if put into practice. “I have no doubt that if the people of that persuasion who are against, who are non-interventionist if you will... if they prevail I think the world will be a less safe place,” Rumsfeld said in an exclusive interview with Campus Reform earlier this week.

Rumsfeld: Israel shouldn’t tell the US before striking IranFormer U.S. defense secretary tells Fox News that international sanctions have had no impact on the Iranian regime • Given leaks at White House, Rumsfeld says he would not notify U.S. of Iran plans if he were in the Israeli government.

Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in a rare public speech, warned that American military and financial weakness is creating a more dangerous and unstable world. Rumsfeld also said the U.S. government, both Congress and the executive branch, is dysfunctional and ill-suited for the information age. He called for creating a blue-ribbon commission to modernize the administrative functions of government agencies and institutions in both branches. The former defense secretary during the George W. Bush administration said he was asked recently what keeps him awake at night. “What I worry about most today is American weakness,” Rumsfeld told a conference...

Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Thursday argued against ratifying the Law of the Sea Treaty, calling the royalties that U.S. companies would have to pay under the pact “a new idea of enormous consequence.” Under the treaty, industrialized countries would pay royalties to lesser developed nations for profits made while exploiting unclaimed energy resources, Mr. Rumsfeld told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. He said this type of wealth redistribution is a “novelty with no clear limits” that also could be applied to space resources in the future.