The Conservative Cave
Current Events => The DUmpster => Topic started by: franksolich on November 11, 2010, 06:07:38 PM
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9539685
Oh my.
For the record, Donald Rumsfeld was on franksolich's "short list" for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. Good guy, Donald.
Stinky The Clown (1000+ posts) Thu Nov-11-10 06:55 PM
LORD HORATIO NELSON, #05 TOP PRIMITIVE OF 2009
Original message
They just showed an old clip of Rumsfeld on the colortini . . . .
Is he not Central Casting's perfect look to play the old, high level Nazi Party functionary in a 1930s costume drama?
after which a decidedly unflattering photograph of Donald Rumsfeld
onethatcares (1000+ posts) Thu Nov-11-10 07:01 PM
Response to Original message
1. he should be dead by now
I mean how long do these guys live. When he was in Nixons circle he was what, 39 years old? Jeeez, it's like the walking dead with him and cheney coming back time after time.
He's got to be at least 186 years old by now, even taking the Nixon years into account.
Well now, how long did the primitive heroes Molotov, Kaganovich, and Brezhnev hang around?
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My best memory of Rumsfeld was during a press conference some reporter tried to spin what he said he looked right at the reporter and said "that is not what I said".
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He had a lot of entertainment value in inflicting pain on the Left (With a smile), but he had some real shortcomings as a SECDEF particularly in the post-Cold War world where lots of skilled, well-supplied and equipped people on the ground had suddenly become much more important than technologically-based dominance of a superpower adversary through an array of extremely expensive aerospace systems. He was reputedly almost as much of a sarcastic, vindictive prick to anyone not giving him the 'Dipping bird' yes-man answers he wanted inside DOD as he was to his President's political adversaries outside it.
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He had a lot of entertainment value in inflicting pain on the Left (With a smile), but he had some real shortcomings as a SECDEF particularly in the post-Cold War world where lots of skilled, well-supplied and equipped people on the ground had suddenly become much more important than technologically-based dominance of a superpower adversary through an array of extremely expensive aerospace systems. He was reputedly almost as much of a sarcastic, vindictive prick to anyone not giving him the 'Dipping bird' yes-man answers he wanted inside DOD as he was to his President's political adversaries outside it.
Aha. I figured you'd comment, sir.
Of course you'd know more about this, being closer to the action, but as a professional civilian, I've been impressed with Donald Rumsfeld since when I was a kid, and he was congressman from Illinois; even met him a couple of times (no lying tits primitive tale here; we just shook hands, a fifteen-second deal).
I always liked his philosophy about when given a choice between doing the right thing and doing the popular thing, to do the right thing.
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Hey, frank. What part of Nelson does Stinky emulate?
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Hey, frank. What part of Nelson does Stinky emulate?
I'm getting a little tired of using "the sparkling husband primitive."
And today, Armistice Day, I remembered that the sparkling husband primitive had once been in the U.S. Navy.
Back in 1965-1967, in a boat off the coast of South Carolina, guarding against an invasion from Gambia or Ghana.
I still think that if the sparkling husband primitive had remained in the Navy more than just two years, and made a career of it, he'd surely be Fleet Commander by now.
Of course I'm being sarcastic.
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I'm getting a little tired of using "the sparkling husband primitive."
And today, Armistice Day, I remembered that the sparkling husband primitive had once been in the U.S. Navy.
Back in 1965-1967, in a boat off the coast of South Carolina, guarding against an invasion from Gambia or Ghana.
I still think that if the sparkling husband primitive had remained in the Navy more than just two years, and made a career of it, he'd surely be Fleet Commander by now.
Of course I'm being sarcastic.
Nuts. See, I was hedging on a mutual level of intelligence between the two of them. :lmao:
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Aha. I figured you'd comment, sir.
Of course you'd know more about this, being closer to the action, but as a professional civilian, I've been impressed with Donald Rumsfeld since when I was a kid, and he was congressman from Illinois; even met him a couple of times (no lying tits primitive tale here; we just shook hands, a fifteen-second deal).
I always liked his philosophy about when given a choice between doing the right thing and doing the popular thing, to do the right thing.
Unfortunately he was not always bounded in those judgments by what was the intelligent thing or even the legal thing, and woe betide any who failed to nod rythmically when he decided he was right, no matter whether 'Right' looked more like capricious or even illegal to someone with less ego involvement in the judgment.
He also had a reputation for never having met an aerospace system he didn't like (His famous 'Shock and awe' is an instance of that technological fascination), but with anything as mundane as ground forces firmly in the back seat. This ulitmately was his downfall, since nearly three years after the invasion of Iraq got into motion (and thus, two more years yet after Afghanistan operations commenced) he was taken to task by troop families and the military press over why arriving units were still being asked to scrounge junkyards for scrap metal to armor their Hummers against IEDs. His answer was "You go to war with the Army you have" which, while true as far as it went and a relevant answer had he given it to troops shipping out in 2003, when given to troops arriving in Iraq in 2006, was perceived correctly as him being appallingly out of touch with the protection needs of ground combat forces and an unfavorable indicator of the relative value he placed on Soldiers' lives.
He was basically a pilot, at home with things like ships, air squadrons, missile wings, etc. -- things. Ground combat is entirely different than sea or air combat, it deals with people much more than things. He was out of his element dealing with people. Some leaders are inspiring, he was more like threatening or exasperating.