Steve Verdon demonstrates today at Outside The Beltway why googling transcripts is becoming one of the blogosphere’s most productive techniques. A quote from Donald Rumsfeld is presented in falsified context by Spencer Ackerman at the New Republic, whereupon Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly decides it makes a fine springboard for his own purposes.
Drum:
But go read Spencer Ackerman’s summary of Rumsfeld’s performance. Sure, we ought to have more armor for our Humvees by now, but this isn’t really a question of armor, it’s a question of respect:
Today, he came face to face with pissed-off frontline soldiers. And he treated them with the same arrogance and condescension that their superior officers have come to expect. To the question about unequal retirement benefits for equal service, Secretary Marie Antoinette replied, “I can’t imagine anyone your age worrying about retirement. Good grief.”
Indeed. Hard to imagine an average joe worrying about retirement. Who does this grunt think he is?
Well, Kevin – maybe he thinks he’s a grunt in a room with a Secretary of Defense who’s comfortable enough to share a mildly self-effacing joke with his troops? Here is Rumsfeld’s actual answer:
SEC. RUMSFELD: [Laughter] I can’t imagine anyone your age worrying about retirement. [Laughter] Good grief. It’s the last thing I want to do is retire. The pay and benefits for the Guard and the Reserve relative to the active force have been going up unevenly at a rate faster than the active force. If you go back over four years – matter of fact, I just went over this with the senior person in the department who looks at pay and benefits. And apparently, what’s happened is that for a variety of reasons, the incremental changes that are made each year, in terms of pay and benefits and health care and retirement and what have you, have brought the Guard and Reserve up at a faster level than the active force. And what one has to do in managing the total force and the total force is critically important. We need the Guard and Reserve as well as the active force. And we have to see that we have the incentives arranged in a way that we can attract and retain the people that are needed to defend the country. At the moment, we are doing well in terms of attracting and retaining the people we need. And if anything, I think the data suggests that the Guard and Reserve forces had been advantaged relatively compared to the active force over the past four years. Question.
Keep in mind that these aren’t two neophyte amateur bloggers. Drum and Ackerman are paid to write this crap. You’d think fact checking before writing would be part of the job description, unless of course – the job is crafting dishonest, politically-motivated hit pieces.
Oh… wait….
The gatekeepers of Main Stream Media have been dealt a terminal blow by the internet.
Some of them will be surprised to look around one day and wonder where all the other Dodos have gone.
Hunted to death by the mighty Google and the Lexis Nexis tribe.
Information can be obtained without first being filtered by the traditional media.
And considering the direction from where the MSM in Canada comes from, we have a chance to save this diseased Dominion.
The silent majority no longer have to be.
Actually, Kate, you’re not necessarily being any more honest than–and you certainly have as much of an ideological axe to grind as–Ackerman or Drum. As Steve Verdon clearly states in his post: I admit I didn’t see any tape of the Q&A session so maybe I missed something in terms of tone or something…. Both Steve and you are working strictly from a transcript, and therefore you’re relying on an interpretation of the two [laughter(s)] to mean that there was a favorable response echoed by the troops. Maybe, maybe not. Drum acknowledges that he is taking Ackerman’s word for it, which seems honest enough. I would imagine that Ackerman actually saw a tape of the Q&A, and was in a position to judge. Still, admittedly, maybe, maybe not. If not, everyone’s jumping to conclusions, and in no position to cast aspersions, I would say. You, of course, further rely on the subsequent answer to provide an edifying context, but to my eyes, it’s typical Rumsfeldian obfuscation*, and hardly brings the “good grief” into clear relief. Sure, I could be wrong as well, but you’ve scarcely verified anything to prove me wrong.
*e.g. “There are known-knowns, known-unknowns, blah, blah, blah.” And, “we know were they are, north, south, east, and west of Baghdad.”
Eye witnesses to the town hall suggest the audience was on the whole, very favourable towards Rumsfeld.
That said, one doesn’t need to see a tape to realize that the question was answered, and there was no disrespect shown.
Go visit 2Slick, if you’re interested in what military “grunts” have to say about the matter.
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I wasn’t at the event yesterday, but our friend SGT Missick was there. He presents a more accurate picture of how the soldiers received the SECDEF- very much in contrast with the “Spanish Inquisition” that you saw from the MSM:
“I must say that the mood in the hangar was much more of goodwill, with soldiers packing around the Secretary as if he was a movie star to shake his hand or get a picture at the end. There was a great deal of frustration in the voice of the soldier who asked questions regarding vehicles being up- armored, and the hangar did erupt in applause after he spoke, but I wouldn’t translate one very tough question into a grill session by American forces.”
http://2slick.blogspot.com/2004/12/rumsfelds-visit.html
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Blogerhead. Rumsfeld’s “There are known knowns etc” is not an obfuscatory statement by any reasonable standard. It may be a little taxing for those who think in slogans;” No Blood for Oil” comes to mind, but it does actually communicate ideas. Is it that you don’t agree with those ideas or do you not understand them ? Perhaps you could also explain Kate’s “ideological axe” because it woud really help me to understand why liberals never seem to acknowledge the devastating consequences of their “point of view” relativism. Or is your nihilism just a cheap parlour-trick ?
Thom:
It’s got nothing to do with relativism, or for Chrissakes, nihilism. It’s about getting the facts before you accuse others of engaging in what you’re patently doing yourself. Kate has now offered what she considers to be further evidence for her point, and I accept her evidence, though I still think it’s a bit scanty. Nevertheless, it doesn’t render the conclusions of her original post any less premature.
As to your blather, you obviously fancy yourself as some sort of bulwark: wingnuts are made like that, I’ve noticed.
OK it’s about facts. What is it about laughter you don’t understand?