Mr. Rumsfeld’s face print remains in the dust that settles around the Tennessee reporter

 

After publishing Another One Bites The Dust, I realized the War president was losing cabinet members and appointees faster than I could write.  I took a few days off, thinking the others who needed to go would fall out quickly, and then I could report the final dusty-lipped deserters in one update.

It was inevitable there would be a few more, since the worst of the bunch remained.  Right? 

Wrong.

A week later, Elaine Chao and Donald Rumsfeld still hang on like static cling and a rayon dress.  Planted firmly with her billing as the least successful person to ever fill the Labor Secretary shoes, she did not develop the ever popular sudden urge to run home to hubby Mitch McConnell, or any other family business. 

Nor did Donald Rumsfeld suddenly remember he had a family that needed or wanted him.  To the contrary, he kicked up quite a dust storm this week without biting anything more than the hands that feed his warmongering.  He added new humiliation and failure to his already awe-inspiring record and declared his decision to honor the War president’s request to stay on and grace us with even more of the same. 

Mr. Rumsfeld made another trip to Kuwait--close enough to the fire to almost get singed--and assured the troops they wouldn’t be any safer with the equipment they had asked for in May.  He promised them the military was doing all it could to provide that equipment anyway.  “It’s essentially a matter of physics,” he said.  “It isn’t a matter of money.  It isn’t a matter on the part of the Army’s desire.  It’s a matter of production and capability of doing it.”  (Does this let John Kerry off the hook for not voting for that extra spending now?)

So what if ArmorWorks of Tempe had been telling the Pentagon for months that they were capable of doubling their production?  Donald Rumsfeld could easily avoid that heat by forcing a reporter from Tennessee into the fall guy position.  The reporter had discussed a soldier’s question with him before he asked it of Mr. Rumsfeld.  It didn’t matter that the soldier, as well as many others who cheered after hearing it, wanted the answer.  Or that other soldiers had asked the same question in May?  The troops and the American people aren’t smart enough to put these pieces together.  Are they?

I’m sure the War president has his reasons for not wanting to shake the static cling.  Just as some mothers enjoy having toddlers hang on their legs, he might find comfort in clingers as well.  However, I’m concerned that Mr. Rumsfeld’s face print remains in the dust that settles around the Tennessee reporter.  And I am disturbed to hear explanations like this is an example of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. 

Is it too much to wish for a repeat of last week?  By the time I finish typing this update, might there be another resignation?  Or two?

Sandy Knauer, author of six published novels, bringing politics and social issues to fiction, and heart to political and social issues.