Jay Bookman

By AJC/DNC Management

December 12, 2008 12:12 PM | Link to this

Why does Colin Powell’s message only work one way?

Why even bother demonizing Rumsfeld?

Obsessive compulsive disorder?

Bush picked both of them so BDS won’t work.

Is this a lead in to censoring any anti Gates talk in the future?

By DB, Gwinnettian

December 12, 2008 12:14 PM | Link to this

He’s on to something.

See, if the initial invasion had been called “Cow, Shock and Awe” we might’ve known the DoD Sec’y had a screw loose right off the bat. Instead it took a little longer to suss that out.

By Mrs.Godzilla

December 12, 2008 12:24 PM | Link to this

I’m still ticked with Rummy over this

By AJC/DNC Management

December 12, 2008 12:33 PM | Link to this

President-elect Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, refused to take questions from reporters this morning about whether he was the Obama “advisor” named in the criminal complaint against Gov. Rod Blagojevich.-ChicagoSunTimes

O.K. so let’s just speculate that the advisor on the tape’s voice sounds mysteriously just like Rhamen’s, what will the dodge be?

What pathetic, disgusting lie will the Oblahmi camp wretch up for the pinkkko media to propagate?

There is something in the works, believe me, he was caught on tape 6 times, this is not a casual discussion about sports, rest assured there are teams of goons and perverts at work in the bowels of the DNC scheming their way out of this.

I can only imagine what lie will be foisted upon us.

ew

By getalife

December 12, 2008 12:42 PM | Link to this

Bleep, bleebity bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, Rumsfeld.

By SwedeAtlanta

December 12, 2008 12:52 PM | Link to this

Re: AJC/DNC Management @ 12:33

Do you just need someplace to go daily to spew? What does your post have anything to do with the topic of Gates versus Rumsfeld?

If you want to raise the issue of the president-elect’s potential involvement in the Senator-gate scandal, then write a LTE or find an appropriate blog to post against.

By hhhhmmmm

December 12, 2008 1:02 PM | Link to this

Rumsfeld made terrible mistakes. Gates is very qualified. We’ve known this for a loooong time. So what’s your point, 2 years later? I don’t understand this missive at all.

It comes across as divisive GOP politics. President Obama’s going to have a hard time bringing this country together if he’s the only one willing to speak to an opposing view judiciously. The talking heads for the Dems and Repubs both need to get a clue.

By "The Corporal"

December 12, 2008 1:09 PM | Link to this

Jay

If you remember, as conservative as I am I said way back from the git-go that Rumsfield was screwing this up - too few troops, poor tactical plan, inability to control the borders initially and no infrastructure plan.

I call it like it is - Republican or Democrat.

I wish I had confidence for the same from some of you who had ZERO issues regarding Aytch until after the campaign.

By CommunistAJC

December 12, 2008 1:20 PM | Link to this

Bookman, What was up with your “transforemer” blog? Bumblebee? So Obama is the weakest of all the autobots? Ok.

Anyway, this blog is pretty weak. You want us to discuss and argue between two of Bush’s appointees. Obamalamadingdong isn’t going to pull out of Iraq.

By the way Jay, I’d love to hear your opinion about the Illinois corruption that Obama is knee deep in. Kind of funny you spent a lot of time telling us idiots that Sarah Palin was corrupt and evil yet Obama is waste deep in corruption.

By Mort Merkel

December 12, 2008 1:26 PM | Link to this

Yeah, we were shocking and awe-ing when we should have been clamping down the borders and searching out and collecting every AK-47 and RPG.

By Mike

December 12, 2008 1:28 PM | Link to this

Well, it looks like Bush made an excellent decision, doesn’t it?

By pjh

December 12, 2008 1:30 PM | Link to this

Bush & Cheney was the ruination of Romsfeld as all their acts of action in stupidity on foreign & domestic situations. Hopefully; Gates has seen through their acts & will do a good job for the new President & VP. I speak as a republican.

By MAC

December 12, 2008 1:42 PM | Link to this

This is not hard to understand. Rumsfeld was a reformer and who upset the status quo at the Pentagon and was constantly undermined by the “officer corps”. Gates is more of a pragmatist, less eager for organizational and budget reform. It depends on what you want in a defense secretary.

Rumsfeld’s mistakes in the war were after the precise execution of the initial military victory over Saddaam’s Iraq not before it.

By Spitballer

December 12, 2008 1:49 PM | Link to this

*SwedeAtlanta *

You fail to realize this thing is a psychosis for a whole lot of people out here. These are the same people who charged others on the “left” of being obsessed with Bush. My how the tables have turned!

I’m convinced that if Obama does at least a halfway decent job of restoring the country, AJC/DNC is gonna off him or herself.

By newsman

December 12, 2008 1:51 PM | Link to this

bookman & tucker…maybe that’s why the AJC has to lay off people?

By Goldie

December 12, 2008 1:52 PM | Link to this

Non-Corporal @ 1:09 — Obama’s not even sworn into office yet and you’re already posting about who has “Zero issues”? No, you don’t call it like it is — you’re a right-wingnut hack and everyone apparently knows that but you.

By Watta Load

December 12, 2008 1:54 PM | Link to this

AJC/DNC Management

You are one to talk about Obsessive compulsive disorder..you seem to be the first blogger every time a new Bookman blog appears. :)

By Goldie

December 12, 2008 1:54 PM | Link to this

Mike @ 1:28 — yeah, your guy Bush made his “excellent decision”, only 3 years too late and 4,000 American troops’ lives already gone… and Bush stayed with his man Rummy until the day after the Repugs got thrown out of Congress in ‘06. What a decider, huh?

By Midori

December 12, 2008 2:07 PM | Link to this

Goldie,

how soon they forget.

By AJC/DNC Management

December 12, 2008 2:09 PM | Link to this

By SwedeAtlanta December 12, 2008 12:52 PM If you want to raise the issue of the president-elect’s potential involvement in the Senator-gate scandal, then write a LTE or find an appropriate blog to post against.

Heil Hitler!

Yes we can!

By The Oddball

December 12, 2008 2:29 PM | Link to this

Can you people have an intelligent discussion without insults and cursing and namecalling? I’ve got a buddy over there lugging a rifle around the Green Zone, and your “contributions” to public discourse aren’t helping him a bit.

By "The Corporal"

December 12, 2008 2:30 PM | Link to this

Goldie

Are you blonde?

I’m bald.

By The Oddball

December 12, 2008 2:42 PM | Link to this

MAC:

You’re right that Rumsfeld deserves credit as a reformer on some issues (esp. CENTCOM organization and planning), even though he screwed up royally in Iraq. However, I’ve seen no evidence that any of his attempts at reform were ever undermined by the officer corps. Rummy is/was the ultimate bureaucratic infighter — any officer who dared breathe a criticism of Rumsfeld quickly found himself transferred or in early retirement. By choking off contrary views from State and from the officers, he made his own miscalculations even more damaging.

Speaking as a former employee of the federal government (keepin’ those big green fighting machines going), you know things are REALLY getting bad at the Pentagon when officers take their complaints public, as they did in Rummy’s final years. That’s falling on your sword for the sake of the Republic. It’s not a good sign.

By "The Corporal"

December 12, 2008 2:52 PM | Link to this

To Oddball

If you want a good read try Dereliction of Duty by McMaster on the Vietnam debacle.

There is one part in there where the Joint Chiefs of Staff (they discussed it) really regretted in later years that they did not resign en masse over Johnson’s/McNamara’s idiotic policies.

Even officers sometimes forget that their oath of office was not to the military, or the President, Congress or the Supreme Court. It was to the Constitution. It takes guts ……… but few have it when their career is on the line.

By The Oddball

December 12, 2008 3:00 PM | Link to this

Copy that, Corporal.

Even the lowly staff sargeants think of resigning in protest from time to time … but we never do, because there would be nobody left to run the corporation!

By Wyld Byll Hyltnyr

December 12, 2008 3:04 PM | Link to this

Jay, Jay, Jay, Jay, now there you go again. When PEOTUS did not name the most liberal among us to his cabinet, you reassured the liberal sheeple by saying it did not matter since the cabinet members were only there to be certain that PEOTUS’ will be done. Why doesn’t the same apply to Gates and President Bush? Perhaps Gates was but there to execute President Bush’s strategic meistrstroke which PEOTUS wrongly and stubbornly opposed.

By CommunistAJC

December 12, 2008 3:48 PM | Link to this

Here is how Obama will destroy the American economy. China will destroy us.

Obama can sign U.N. climate pact before U.S. law: Kerry

POZNAN, Poland (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate will let President-elect Barack Obama sign up to a U.N. pact to fight global warming in late 2009 even if U.S. climate laws are not yet in place, U.S. Senator John Kerry predicted on Thursday.

But Kerry, designated head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on the sidelines of U.N. climate talks in Poland that China, India and Russia would also have to promise to cut greenhouse gas emissions to win Senate blessing of any pact.

“It will be like the difference between night and day,” Kerry, of Massachusetts, said of Obama’s enthusiasm for action against climate change after what he said were eight years of inaction under President George W. Bush.

He told Reuters support in the United States for climate action was strong enough to let Obama sign up for emissions cuts under a U.N. pact to be agreed in Copenhagen in late 2009 even if the Senate had not by then agreed matching U.S. climate laws.

“We can have commenced the (domestic) legislative process, we don’t have to have completed it,” before agreeing to cuts under a U.N. treaty, he said.

President Bill Clinton agreed in 1997 to the U.N.’s existing Kyoto Protocol for cutting greenhouse gases until 2012 but never tried to get the pact ratified by a hostile Senate.

Kerry, a Democrat beaten by Bush in the 2004 presidential election, will report back to Obama from Poznan.

By the time of the Copenhagen meeting, domestic legislation might have passed “a couple of committees” but might not have reached the full Senate “because of the economic situation and the budget issues and other things,” Kerry said.

CUTS

Obama has said he plans to cut U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases, now about 17 percent above 1990 levels, back to 1990 levels by 2020 and then by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

“Some of us believe he should go further than that” by 2020, Kerry said. “My hope is that … we may even be able to do better.”

Bush rejected Kyoto, which sets 2012 targets for 37 developed nations to cut emissions, saying it was too costly and should have also set targets for developing nations.

Kerry said that all major emitters would have to accept goals for cuts under a new treaty.

“What’s important is that we go to Copenhagen understanding that no treaty is going to pass the U.S. Senate unless it is a global solution. China, India, Russia — all countries have to be part of the solution,” he said.

“China is now the largest emitter in the world,” he said. “China has to reduce, in concrete fixed levels from its current levels. So do we. So does the EU (European Union), so does the rest of the world.” Targets could vary by country.

China says that rich nations must cut most because they pump out most greenhouse gases per person, mainly from burning fossil fuels. In three months, the average American produces more greenhouse gases than the average Chinese does in a year.

Kerry said the Senate would work early in 2009 on a renewable energy bill and on measures to stimulate the economy — including creating green jobs — before turning to climate legislation.

Obama plans to set up a trading system to help cut carbon dioxide emissions. Asked if the United States would eventually get a cap and trade system, Kerry said: “Personally I’d like to see it but you don’t have to have it.”

By "The Corporal"

December 12, 2008 4:12 PM | Link to this

Oddball

The enlisted run the military while the officer corps commands it. It can be run with out being commanded but it can’t be commanded without being run.

Semper Fi

By Critical

December 12, 2008 5:27 PM | Link to this

Rumsfeld was terrible, Gates did damage control, and General Eric Shinseki is the nation’s hero.

Enough said.

By Danjonglee

December 12, 2008 6:16 PM | Link to this

Down with Rumsfeld! Evil human being…. Americans cannot be trusted in protecting their country because they just might succeed. For too long has America stood in our way! We must put it under the protection of the United Nations. Nothing in this world succeeds like failure. What’s good for Rwanda is good for America!

By Tom

December 12, 2008 6:54 PM | Link to this

” CORPORAL:” Grow up. No one is interested in your mindless crap. “Semper Fi”..what??? Are you yet another false and phony “war hero”?? So many little punks here declare themselves that. How about a listing of all your duty stations, info on your DD214s, etc/ I thought not.

And here’s to the clown here who spoke adoringly of someone lugging “…a rifle around the Green Zone.” Big deal - the Green Zone!! Geesuss! Every fast food joint you ever heard of is there. Plus huge movoie theaters. Plus 2 huge “game” warehouses. (Yes, our heroes must have their games to play!) Plus phone calls day and night to mommy. Plus TVs to watch “King Of Thee Hill,” “Beverly Hillbillies,” “Dukes of Hazard,” and other such intellectual fare. And if they should happen to depart that “dangerous” zone, they’re sure to be home before dark for more TV and movies and Starbucks and… Not my kind of Army. So tell us all about YOUR heroic struggles, freak. t

By Frederick Douglass

December 12, 2008 7:59 PM | Link to this

In defense of the young people who serve in the Green Zone, these kids are just doing what they’re ordered to do. It’s not their faults that they’re caught up in what amounts to a gigantic vendetta gone bad. Personally I abhor the actions of leaders that portray themselves as “Deciders”, and use others as cannon fodder to advance their fantasies. Specifically, our current president had his war (Viet Nam) to prove his mettle, the “Decider” decided to sit that one out in the safety of the guard. Its admirable that young people are stepping up to serve their country unquestiongly, because there are a lot of questions that deserve some answers.

By bennykeen

December 12, 2008 8:00 PM | Link to this

No contest,they’re both wickedly evil “men”!One’s a bumbling psychopath,the other, a glib,malefic,pogrom sciolist. I detest both equally.

By MAC

December 12, 2008 9:02 PM | Link to this

Tom is a sad and pathetic hater of the military, men and women whose voluntary service allows him the freedom to make condescending and idiotic comments about those who serve.

By "The Corporal"

December 13, 2008 1:09 AM | Link to this

To MAC

Yes, Tom is one of those kept by better men than himself.

The Corporal India Company 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines Vietnam (1967-68)

And Tom …. Semper Fi is Latin.

Look it up but it will never apply to you.