It was only a matter of time before Donald Rumsfeld figured out the real source behind all of his problems. Poor planning? Rampant incompetence? Corruption? Nice try. Apparently, it’s the media’s fault.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Wednesday the Pentagon had not done a good job in the information war against enemies like al Qaeda, saying U.S. personnel felt constrained partly due to fear of criticism in the media.
“This is an area that we don’t do well — we know we don’t do well,” Rumsfeld told a Pentagon briefing, referring to information operations and psychological warfare aimed at foreign peoples and enemies.
“How do we compete in this struggle in a way that can counter the ability of the enemy to lie, which we can’t do, (and) the ability of the enemy to not have a free media criticizing them? You don’t see much criticizing of them.”
I know I’m supposed to be inured by now, but these were pretty bizarre comments, even by Rumsfeld standards.
It’s hard to even know where to start, but let me just ask two questions: Does Rumsfeld really expect anyone to believe he feels constrained into telling the truth? And since when does Rumsfeld care at all about whether reporters are writing negative stories about his “leadership” of the Pentagon?
…Rumsfeld said the risk of being criticized by the U.S. news media had a chilling effect on the U.S. military.
“And they (defense personnel) say, ‘Oh my goodness, if you do anything in that area, you get penalized because there’s bad press, there’s bad news, someone doesn’t like it, there’s a congressional hearing, the newspaper has it on the front page because it’s about the media and the media likes to write about the media,'” Rumsfeld said.
I sometimes get the feeling that Rumsfeld is just testing his boundaries, seeing just how ridiculous he can be.