Who else do you think this is:
One senior official referred to the frantic negotiations with an epithet and put the blame for the delays on the Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, who had insisted on the new resolution to gain crucial political support at home.
C’mon, Rummy. Patience. It’s worth another day to get those nine votes. It’s not over till it’s over.
AND AGAIN: Check out this piece from CNN:
To the dismay of the U.S. officials involved, the secret effort [for Iraqi military surrender] was first publicly hinted at Tuesday by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. When asked at a press conference how the Iraqi military could signal support for the U.S. effort, Rumsfeld said, “They are being communicated with privately at the present time. They are being, will be communicated with in a more public way. And they will receive instructions so that they can behave in a way that will be seen and understood as being non-threatening.”
First offending a critical ally, now his own administration. He’s a great defense secretary but his lack of an edit function in public isn’t helping anyone.
THE JEWS: Here’s a quote worth reading:
We charge that a cabal of polemicists and public officials seek to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America’s interests. We charge them with colluding with Israel to ignite those wars and destroy the Oslo Accords. We charge them with deliberately damaging U.S. relations with every state in the Arab world that defies Israel or supports the Palestinian people’s right to a homeland of their own. We charge that they have alienated friends and allies all over the Islamic and Western world through their arrogance, hubris, and bellicosity. Not in our lifetimes has America been so isolated from old friends. Far worse, President Bush is being lured into a trap baited for him by these neocons that could cost him his office and cause America to forfeit years of peace won for us by the sacrifices of two generations in the Cold War.
Chomsky? Moran? International ANSWER? Nah. It’s our old friend, Patrick Buchanan. And it’s an even older charge, dual loyalty. Buchanan goes off on a somewhat deranged tirade – with some truly ugly moments:
Cui Bono? For whose benefit these endless wars in a region that holds nothing vital to America save oil, which the Arabs must sell us to survive? Who would benefit from a war of civilizations between the West and Islam? Answer: one nation, one leader, one party. Israel, Sharon, Likud.
Does anyone else hear the rhetorical echo here of “Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer”? It seems to me that it should be perfectly legitimate to talk about the influence of, say, AIPAC, in Washington; and indeed, the force of thinkers sympathetic to the state of Israel on American foreign policy. As Mike Kinsley tartly notes, if AIPAC can boast of its own influence, why can’t others decry it? But the notion that this war needs justification beyond what is obviously America’s and the West’s self-interest seems to me to be paranoid and a little creepy. I’m not going to rehearse all the arguments again – but as a red-blooded British-born Irish Catholic, I need no Jewish heritage to appreciate them. And the fact that Buchanan doesn’t even fully address the broader reasons and instead goes off on a rant against some American Jews is proof enough of where he’s coming from. These are ugly times. And they just got uglier.
The Dish 