Quitting is not an exit strategy

Rumsfeld yesterday defended the number of troops sent to Iraq, saying that every single general, except maybe the one he fired, said that it was the right number. And you can’t suggest that Rummy doesn’t appreciate being contradicted, facing hard facts and hard questions, because after all he gave this interview to... Larry King. “Now, is it the right number? Time will tell.” Jeez, Rummy, checked your inbox lately? Time has told.

What you’ve gotta love about Republicans is that they can invade a country and make it sound like a ‘60s welfare program: “The second risk [of sending “too many” troops] is you create a dependency. You do all the work for the Iraqis, instead of pushing them and having them do the work.” Yeah, can’t turn the whole country into a bunch of shiftless hippies; “push” them into a civil war, that’ll toughen em up.

And he insists that “Quitting is not an exit strategy.” Dude, it really kinda is.

Larry asked him how he felt signing letters to relatives of dead soldiers. “Annoyed that I got caught using that autosigner.” OK he didn’t say that. He did say that it doesn’t affect his sleep because he reads history before he goes to bed. I bet he doesn’t get asked to give a lot of jacket quotes.

Asked about his meetings with families of dead soldiers, this is the adjective he chose to apply to those meetings: “forward-looking.”

Suspender Man brought up Robert McNamara having recanted on Vietnam. Here is how foreign the concept of guilt is to Rummy: when King said, “He lives with a lot of pain,” Rummy, totally missing the point, replied, “He does. As a matter of fact, he has just been ill, but he’s much better.”

Asked about Cheney, Rummy utters the understatement of the year: “Well, he doesn’t spend any time trying to make people like him.”

Asked about Bush, Rummy utters the mis-statement of the year: “He is enormously talented, bright,” adding, “I just spent an hour and a half with him. And he must have asked 50 questions of John Abizaid and me and General Pace.” CONTEST: what are some of those questions? “Can I have a cookie? Can I have a cookie? How ‘bout now? Can I have a cookie?...”

Oh, and Larry King being Larry King asked Rummy if he watched American Idol. “Heck, no!”