Donald Rumsfeld Gives Bush a D and Obama an F

Remember when Jon Stewart cautioned Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld that Obama’s transgressions do not wipe away theirs? Unconvicted war criminal Rumsfeld didn’t see that episode.

Former Bush administration Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (2001-2006) appeared on The Lead with Jake Tapper not only to complain about President Barack Obama, but to give his former boss a “D” rating. Obama, who, according to Rumsfeld, “has blamed the Bush administration for practically everything since he took office,” get’s an “F.”

Wow, he sorta doesn’t mention that the GOP has blamed Obama for everything Bush did or didn’t do. They’ve said 9/11 didn’t occur on Bush’s watch and would pin it on Obama if they could. But Rumsfeld has never been one to let facts intrude on a good lie.

Keep in mind, as you watch this, the report that tells us “President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.”

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Watch, courtesy of CNN:

“I gave us a D-minus, and I’m an easy grader. I would give this administration an F, because they won’t even use the words.”

What words, you ask?

Until today, I haven’t heard people use the word jihad. I haven’t heard the people in the Obama administration talk about the fact that there are people that are determined to kill innocent men, women, and children that are attacking the whole concept of the nation state.

Oh, so what’s missing from the “Obama doctrine” is the recognition that for America, as well as for Islamic terrorists, this is a holy war? That was definitely the vibe of the Bush administration. Republicans still act like this is a religious crusade and they want more religious crusades, in Iran, or in Syria. Can’t get enough.

What the Obama administration understands, and which the Bush administration never did, is that the so-called War on Terror made black and white what was, in fact, many hued. Al Qaeda is at war with Islam, embracing the restoration of the caliphate, something no modern Islamic state wants, since they are also defined by the concept of the nation state.

Despite the Bush administration’s serious lack of effort in either capturing or killing al Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden, Rumsfeld has the temerity to pooh-pooh Obama’s accomplishments and his administration’s claim that Al Qaeda has “been gutted.”

That just simply isn’t true. Al Qaeda is still effective. We have killed or captured any number of al Qaeda leadership, and they get replaced. Someone comes on behind them.

As effective as they were in say, 2001, when they killed 3000 Americans in New York? Well no, Rumsfeld admits the threat is different today, though he stubbornly refuses to give Obama and his administration any credit.

Like, no Osama bin Laden, right, Donald?

We know the number of people that have been killed or captured. We don’t know the number of people that have been recruited. We don’t know the number that are being trained. We don’t know the amount of money that the al Qaeda and their affiliates are raising every year from supporters.

Rumsfeld eventually got around to that favorite Republican topic, that the Obama administration has lost credibility and the confidence of the American people.

When I was a Navy pilot, the rule if you’re lost is to climb, conserve, and confess. Get some altitude. Take a deep breath, and get on the radio and say, you’re lost,” said Rumsfeld. Desperate to find chinks in Obama’s armor, Rumsfeld then compared apples to oranges by saying we lack of steady hand at the top, that the administration changes “week after week after week, whether it’s Benghazi or whether it’s the Internal Revenue Service.

Rumsfeld’s solution?

“What you need to do is get the people in the office, sit them down, and find ground truth, because the currency a leader has is credibility,” he said. “To the extent that credibility gets eroded over time, you lose your ability to lead.”

One thing Rumsfeld ought to know a lot about is the lack of credibility, since he has none. Stewart said of Rumsfeld, “‘Rumsfeld’ is German for promoting a narrative because it fits your hopes and what you want to be the case.” The former secretary of defense’s appearance on Tapper’s show demonstrates that he is being true to his name.

As Rumsfeld explained last week, intel only counts when you’re Obama. And if you get called out on your faulty intel and happen to be a Republican, you can always point out that hindsight is 20/20 and at the time, you can only use the information you have, not information people might have later.

That’s true enough, but it must apply evenly, across the board, rather than, as Rumsfeld would have it, for one administration but not another.

The former secretary of defense wants what no other public figure in the history of the world has gotten: a free pass. He’s going to be disappointed.

To paraphrase what the Hawk said to the Natasha Romanov in the movie of Avengers, “You and I remember Iraq very differently.”

Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.