The Washington Post has been a persistent and aggressive critic of the Bush Administration’s disgraceful violation of the basic laws not only of democracy but of humanity, but somehow it can’t, or at least doesn’t, resist throwing that vicious crew an occasional bone. The editorial page of today’s Post provides a forum for a thoroughly unnecessary and thoroughly disingenuous article by one Lawrence Di Rita, a former special assistant to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and a self-important windbag previously unknown to me.
It is Larry’s self-appointed task to demolish the “myth” that Gen. Eric Shinseki questioned Donald Rumsfeld’s disastrous strategy in Iraq. The historical record clearly shows that a lot of army officers “questioned” Rumsfeld’s strategy, and they were firmly told to shut the fuck up. When Shinseki dared to publicly suggest that “several hundred thousand men” would be needed in Iraq, Rumsfeld said the figure was “far off the mark,” and the once-voluble but now strangely silent Paul Wolfowitz followed up by calling it “wildly off the mark.” Remarkablely enough, neither comment is featured in Larry ponderous rant.
If you want to read an intelligent piece on Gen. Shinseki, go here to Wikipedia, and forget about Larry. I mean, the guy’s no Paul Wolfowitz, but he’s trying.
