{"id":7241,"date":"2006-04-26T10:43:30","date_gmt":"2006-04-26T14:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7241"},"modified":"2006-04-26T10:43:30","modified_gmt":"2006-04-26T14:43:30","slug":"bringing-rumsfeld-to-the-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bringing-rumsfeld-to-the-hill\/","title":{"rendered":"Bringing Rumsfeld to the Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"

With so many retired [tag]generals[\/tag] calling for [tag]Donald Rumsfeld[\/tag]’s resignation, Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee got an idea: why not hold a hearing to explore why these decorated veterans feel so strongly about the issue. As [tag]Hillary Clinton[\/tag] suggested<\/a> in a letter to Chairman [tag]John Warner[\/tag] (R-Va.), an open discussion “can help ensure we learn from past experiences and better shape future operations.”<\/p>\n

On Monday, Warner said he’d eventually open the matter to a vote<\/a> — if the committee wanted a hearing with the retired generals, they’d get one. Of course, there are more Republicans on the committee than Dems, so the minority would need a little support — specifically, two votes — from GOP members. As luck would have it, Dems might actually get it.<\/p>\n

Sen. [tag]Susan Collins[\/tag] (R-Maine) indicated this week that she supports a hearing. Dems need one more Republican to break ranks — and so all eyes are on John McCain<\/a>, who once famously said he has “no confidence<\/a>” in the Defense secretary.<\/p>\n

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the No. 2 member of the [tag]Senate Armed Services Committee[\/tag], said yesterday that he would support a hearing featuring the seven retired generals calling for the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld — with one caveat.<\/p>\n

McCain said he would be in favor of the testimony on Rumsfeld’s performance “if it is a hearing that is balanced,” adding that it would have to include testimony from officials who back the secretary of defense.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As far as I’m concerned, that sounds fine. This would be the Senate Armed Services Committee acting as it should — a controversy arises surrounding generals and the Defense secretary, so lawmakers get together to hear what the relevant players involved have to say.<\/p>\n

Even if the hearing features Rumsfeld backers, the point is the committee would publicly debate whether or not the Defense secretary is capable and competent. At an absolute minimum, it’s a debate worth having.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With so many retired [tag]generals[\/tag] calling for [tag]Donald Rumsfeld[\/tag]’s resignation, Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee got an idea: why not hold a hearing to explore why these decorated veterans feel so strongly about the issue. As [tag]Hillary Clinton[\/tag] suggested in a letter to Chairman [tag]John Warner[\/tag] (R-Va.), an open discussion “can help ensure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}