Boehner on Rumsfeld and ‘where the bodies are buried’

October 30, 2006

A growing number of Republican office-holders and candidates have come to the conclusion that most of us realized a long time ago: it’s time for Donald Rumsfeld to go. Indeed, it’s getting tough to find anyone outside the White House who’s willing to defend what it obviously a disastrous tenure at the Pentagon.

Then again, there was House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on ABC yesterday, saying, “Rumsfeld is the best thing that’s happened to the Pentagon in 25 years.” There was no indication that he was kidding.

In case there was any doubt, Boehner added to the comments this morning on MSNBC, saying, “I think he’s done a marvelous job.” What could possibly lead a sane person to come to this conclusion? Consider what Boehner had to say yesterday.

“This Pentagon and our military needs a transformation and I think Donald Rumsfeld is the only man in America who knows where the bodies are buried at the Pentagon, has enough experience to help transform that institution. […]

“Let’s not take the problems in Iraq, the tough fight that we’re in there and blame it on anyone. We’re in a tough fight. Al Qaeda is doing everything they can to disrupt our efforts in Iraq, to disrupt the new government, creating more violence than anyone can imagine and defeating al Qaeda there is important, because if we were to pull out before we win, we will embolden every terrorist in every corner of the world and then instead of fighting them in Iraq, we’ll be fighting them on every street in America.”

There are far too many problems with this to go debunk every word, but consider two quick points. One, could Boehner actually think that al Qaeda will be on “every street in America” if we redeploy troops from Iraq?

And two, considering one of the reasons so much of the country wants Rumsfeld’s ouster, could he have picked a worse metaphor than knowing “where the bodies are buried”?

Further proof of their desperation. “We’ll be fighting them on every street in America.”

Shouldn’t that be taken as the proof of their incompetence?

The panther sweat of fear is now such a palpable stink on these scum that it comes through just reading their statements on a computer. They’re going down, circling the bowl, and they know it. Like a drowning man just before he goes under for the last time, they are lunging at anything that might keep their head above water, even obvious bullshit like this. It used to work for them, but nothing that worked for them before works for them now.

Just breathe deep, think “how pitiful,” and take it as another reason to be first in line at your polling place a week from tomorrow. And get all your friends there, too.

  • When you look at the transformation that has occured over at the Pentagon, a lighter, quicker force, it would not have happened without the leadership of Donald Rumsfeld.

    Yeah. A light, quick force is what we needed the last three years in post-invasion Iraq, Congressman Boner.

  • “Let’s not take the problems in Iraq, the tough fight that we’re in there and blame it on anyone.”

    This should be the first quote in every Dem ad from now until election. Then, if Dems win either house of congress, it should be brought up repeatedly. Good lord, ’nuff said.

    “We’re in a tough fight. Al Qaeda is doing everything they can to disrupt our efforts in Iraq….”

    How dare our pesky enemies (who weren’t even in Iraq until we invaded it) try to undermine our efforts. I mean, who would have ever guessed that our enemies would actually oppose us. And really, who would ever thought to plan for something as bat-shit crazy as that? We’re getting into Katherine Harris territory now….

    Come to think of it, why does Boehner always look like he has tons of eye makeup on?

  • Every street of America… that logic predicates that our being there KEEPS them in Iraq.

    But in reality, Iraqis are leaving anyway, in droves… from truthout, “In July, the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants said there were 2.2 million Afghans who had fled abroad and at least 153,200 displaced internally. For Iraq, there were 888,700 external refugees, and 1.3 million people displaced inside the country. An estimated 40 per cent of the Iraqi middle class have left Iraq.”

    So you’re saying not even one of those individuals, whose home in Falluja was destroyed by us, will find his way to “our streets”?

  • Stupidity is the price of loyalty to George Bush, and Boehner’s hyperbole is showing. As far has fighting Al Quaeda on every American street …. let them come. They’d be seriously outgunned by the local populace.

    As far as knowing where the bodies are buried, or what closet the little boys are in, maybe that’s why Generals Casey and Pace have been so loyal while they watch their armed forces get ground down in the desert sand. I’d like to see a Dem stand up and ask just what has Rummy transformed our armed forces into? Our military is definitley worse off than what was in 2000. We didn’t need the transformation we got.

  • “This Pentagon and our military needs a transformation and I think Donald Rumsfeld is the only man in America who knows where the bodies are buried at the Pentagon, has enough experience to help transform that institution. […]”

    See, Rummy is taking the military formula for making a civilian into a soldier and turning it into a formula for making a new army.

    Step 1: Break the civilian, remove pride in self, remove individualism.
    Step 2: Starting from scratch, rebuild the person into a soldier.

    Rummy has completed step 1 and completely destroyed our miliatry. As for setp 2, it looks kind of bleak.

    Let me ask a simple question here, if Iraq astc as a magnet to “terra-ists” and we are fighting them over there so we are not “fighting them on every street in America” why was Iraq the place to do that and not Afganistan?

  • Okay- so Boner was right for once- and he perfectly describes why Rumsfeld hasn’t been pushed out yet- because “he knows where the bodies are buried”.

    Where’s the controversy? This seems to be a pretty damn straight-forward and honest assessment of the situation!!!

  • “has enough experience to help transform that institution.”

    Transform it into what? An even bigger pile of corpses? An even bigger waste of money? If so, you’re doin’ a heckuva job Rummy!

    “the only man in America who knows where the bodies are buried”

    Yep, right across the street in Arlington Cemetery. Nice to know Don “Duck and Cover” Rumsfeld has finally noticed the increased activity there of late.

    “then instead of fighting them in Iraq, we’ll be fighting them on every street in America.”

    Yep, because ShrubCo’s continued refusal to address port security issues will allow hordes of terrorists to sneak into the country! And once again, Boner wants us to think every guy with a gun in Iraq is a member of Al-Quaida. A comparison your average Iraqi doesn’t care for too much. But who cares about pissing off people who might be your allies when there are talking points to be parroted?

    You couldn’t parody these bastards any better than they do themselves.

  • I can’t believe nobody’s said it yet, but I will: “Of course he knows where the bodies are buried, since he’s responsible for so many (3,000 of ours; 500,000 of theirs) of them.”

  • What could possibly lead a sane person to come to this conclusion?

    Well, that’d be your first mistake: thinking that this guy was sane.

    The problem with Rummy is that he treats his job not as if he’s the leader of the military, but as if he’s a politician, worried more about the ideology than what is best for the men and women in uniform.

    While that’s not exactly new, he’s taken it to a new level.

  • Just out of curiosity, am I the only one who sees a connection between Rumsfeld at the Pentagon—and the fabled poem, “Charge of the Light Brigade?”

    All you have to do is:

    1.) Take “the 600” off their horses—and put them in Humvees;

    then:

    2.) Change all those “Cannons to the Left; Cannons to the Right”…into I.E.D.s….

  • “…we’ll be fighting them on every street in America.” – Boehner

    What these idiots fail to realize is that the purpose of terrorism is to terrorize – to fill hearts and minds with fear, so that the object of their attacks takes the desired action on its own. Thus, the terrorist need not carry out an ongoing, continuous or even widespread battle. An occassional strike at an unpredictable time and place actually works better. It’s the fear of where and when the next attack might occur that does the damage.

    In other words, Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Boehner and all the rest are helping the terrorists win by continually spreading fear. Terrorists don’t win — the objects of their terror let them win.

  • I am so sick of hearing about al Qaeda as if it’s an army. There’s a good argument to be made that al Qaeda as an entity was originally dreamed up by our own legal eagles in Washington to allow prosecution of bin Laden (should we ever have grabbed him) under the RICO act. We’ve given the amorphous al Qaeda much of its power by using it as the scariest straw man ever. How many terrorists claim to be a part of it who have no real connection with bin Laden and his boys?

    Have you ever seen that British series called The Power of Nightmares? It’s well worth a look to get some of the history behind all this.

    Somebody ought to slap that moron Boner upside the head and tell him that the insurgency isn’t an al Qaeda creation. It’s a friggin’ civil war, al Qaeda’s just there for the pot shots and training. What a bonehead!

  • “we’re in a tough fight”

    Reminds me of the scene in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” when Clooney keeps repeating “we’re in a tight spot” as the barn gets bricks thrown at it, lit on fire, and shot up, leaving them w/o a means of escape…

  • “One, could Boehner actually think that al Qaeda will be on “every street in America” if we redeploy troops from Iraq?”

    No, that’s just the campaign session spin. As other’s have said, that would be rather great proof of their incompetence. And fortunately, they have yet to so undermine the foundations of the United States to achieve that goal (getting close, though). It’s just red meat for THE BASE.

    “And two, considering one of the reasons so much of the country wants Rumsfeld’s ouster, could he have picked a worse metaphor than knowing “where the bodies are buried”?”

    It is pretty sick. Most people with any kind of sense don’t try to reform a military during or even immediately before a war. That is usually the cause of a serious defeat. Unfortunately, Rummy went to war with the Military he had, not the one he needed to occupy Iraq. And it’s not like people didn’t tell him this, it just that during Cheney’s energy industry gift-giving meetings he had doled out the rights to Iraq’s oil and he had to have a war with Saddam to get those rights.

    “Just out of curiosity, am I the only one who sees a connection between Rumsfeld at the Pentagon—and the fabled poem, ‘Charge of the Light Brigade?'” – Steve

    The Ride of the HumVe-ers

    Half a world, half a world, half a world over
    All in the valley Tigris rode the HumVe-ers
    ‘Forward the few brigades, charge for the Oil’ W said
    Into the valley Tigris rode the HumVe-ers

    ‘Forward the few brigades’, was there a man dismay’d?
    Not tho’ Ric had said ’twas a blunder
    Theirs not to make reply,
    Theirs not to reason why,
    Theirs but to do & die,
    Into the valley Tigris rode the HumVe-ers.

    Bombs to the right of them,
    Suicides left of them,
    Militias mine and snipe at them;
    Ambushed with IEDs,
    Patroling out in the streets,
    In unarmored Hummer V’s,
    All through the valley Tigris rode the HumVe-ers.

    Building new schools there,
    Clinics in disrepair,
    While KBR took no due care,
    Corruption so rampant while All the world wondered;
    Pipelines exploding bright,
    Almost every damn night,
    al Qaeda and Sunni fight,
    Slip ‘way from every
    new sweap or patrol
    while through the valley Tigris rode the HumVe-ers.

    What more after three long years,
    stuck here for W’s fears,
    while home a mother’s tears
    course down her cheeks.
    Up for a new patrol,
    Finding last night’s death toll,
    Death squads are on a roll,
    With guns we just gave them
    To water the bloody soil.
    What heart is left to ride the HumVe-ers.

    When will we take account
    Of half a trillion amount?
    All America wonder’d.
    And the lives poorly spent
    And all the bodies rent
    of the HumVe-ers.

  • Lance,

    I’ll be forwarding this to as many people as I know. Also printing it out for our Rockbridge Co/Lexington (VA) HQ “library”.

    Hope you don’t mind; there just isn’t time enough to ask permission…

  • “[…] then instead of fighting them in Iraq, we’ll be fighting them on every street in America.”

    Actually… If that were to happen, I think me might have a much better chance of winning.

    As for the situation in Iraq, a quote from another article in yesterday’s WashPo (“This is Baghdad. What could be worse?” by Anthony Shahid) :

    One-third of us are dying,
    one-third of us are fleeing
    and one-third of us will be widows.

    (and never mind the quote how having Israel rule Iraq would be better than wht’s happening now)

  • “This Pentagon and our military needs a transformation and I think Donald Rumsfeld is the only man in America who knows where the bodies are buried at the Pentagon, has enough experience to help transform that institution.”

    It been 5 years, and they’re still trying to “transform” the military??

    And “transformed” into what? A “lighter, quicker” Army that can get to a hotspot and blown up by IED’s a lot faster than those old Cold War units?

    Lance, great work. I would have rather used Iron Maiden’s “The Trooper” (less words, more guitar), but that’s the Midwestern culture I was raised in.

  • I don’t mind libra. Spread it far and wide. Art for art’s sake, in the end.

    Our soldier’s lives matter more.

  • Lance, great work. I would have rather used Iron Maiden’s “The Trooper” (less words, more guitar), but that’s the Midwestern culture I was raised in.
    2Manchu

    I was thinking Metallica’s “Disposable Heroes.” Granted, not as cerebral as Charge of the HumVe-ers, but a lot easier to head bang to.

    🙂

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