Word: rumsfeldism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told lawmakers on the Hill that those weapons might still be found; CIA chief George Tenet defended his intelligence by suggesting there's no such thing as perfection in his business; and the apostate Colin Powell was back in his pew after suggesting he might have some doubts about how we got here. The message from all sides was essentially this: We weren't wrong, and if we were, no one can prove it. Bush himself chose to walk into the lion's den, sitting down with Tim Russert on NBC's Meet the Press...
First to charge was Rumsfeld, who offered the House and Senate Armed Services Committees no new facts but a whole postgraduate course in theories of where Saddam's weapons went: maybe they were hidden; maybe Saddam moved them to another country; maybe he destroyed them at the last minute; maybe his scientists tricked him into believing he had a bigger arsenal than he had. "Well," Rumsfeld concluded in his testimony before the Senate, "we'll learn more about those various theories in the weeks and months ahead," sounding calm and reasoned as he tiptoed backward out of the saloon before...
...While Rumsfeld and Tenet were defending the process that led to war, the President defended its outcome. He continued his tour of Democratic primary states, visiting South Carolina to scrub off all the anti-Bush graffiti left by the Democrats, who had been denouncing him at every turn. Saddam may not have had those weapons, he said, but he had the means, the knowledge, the infrastructure and the willingness to make and use them. "Knowing what I knew then and knowing what I know today," he declared, "America did the right thing in Iraq...
What is far more surprising is the extent to which Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld actually seem to believe in the fantasies they peddle. Auletta quotes Bush as boasting, “No president has ever done more for human rights than I have.” In fact, no president has persisted for so long with his fingers in his ears. It has been well-publicized that Bush distrusts most media sources and instead receives his information from close (and biased) advisers. It is no wonder then that Bush remains so out of touch with reality?...
...Sunni and Kurdish representatives on the IGC; each indication of a concession to Kurdish demands raises hackles among Shiite and Sunni leaders. Confronted by an increasingly complex array of political choices in Iraq, the Bush administration is reportedly divided over how best to proceed. Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly favor dispensing with the caucus plan to hand over power directly to the Governing Council, expanding its Shiite representation in the hope that this would mollify Sistani. The State Department and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice reportedly oppose the idea, advocating a more cautious approach that...