All Apologies

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The morning's Rumsfeld news: The Donald will apologize to Congress, and ask for an independent commission to investigate.

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Matt Welch is an editor at large at Reason.

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  1. Ken Shultz
    May.7.2004 at 1:23 am

    …I mean, ?We didn’t tell you about self-documented, systemic human rights abuse because we didn’t want to endanger any of our personnel.? sounds like something a Clinton aid would say.

    In addition to asking for evidence of a correlation between field casualties and reporting human rights abuses, my follow up question would include a request that Myers furnish a detailed list of all the types of documented atrocities that won?t be reported in order to protect military personnel.

  2. Ken Shultz
    May.7.2004 at 2:18 am

    If I hear one more idiot on this panel suggest that these atrocities occured because of a lack of training, one more time, I’m gonna vomit.

  3. Mr. Nice Guy
    May.7.2004 at 2:37 am

    Thoreau: LOL!

    My only suggestions are that you add some snide, catty dialogue, some backstabbing, and have Cheny actually running the boardroom with a cheesy toupe. 🙂

  4. SR
    May.7.2004 at 2:38 am

    thoreau, someone at LewRockwell.com beat you to that parody already: http://www.lewrockwell.com/cummings/cummings35.html

    Your piece was funnier however. 🙂

  5. Mr. Dave
    May.7.2004 at 3:40 am

    Sir Humphrey would be very cross about the appology, but quite pleased with the independent commission.

  6. Linda
    May.7.2004 at 4:49 am

    Great! Just what we need…another independent commission.

  7. Just Passing Thru
    May.7.2004 at 10:33 am

    What we need is another independent…blog!

    Was it Andy Warhol who stated that in the future every blog will be famous for fifteen minutes?

  8. Will
    May.7.2004 at 11:09 am

    Amazing what you’re capable of doing when your job is hanging by a thread…

  9. Hydroman
    May.7.2004 at 11:17 am

    I apologize for reading that!

  10. Walter Wallis
    May.7.2004 at 11:28 am

    Hey, Ken, it was lack of training. Of course this is the training most of us got in kindergarten or 1st grade, latest.

  11. rich
    May.7.2004 at 11:40 am

    Oh no, not another useless independent commission. I’ve always backed Rumsfeld, but if he’s responsible for foisting another one of those on us, I say fire his ass.

  12. steve
    May.7.2004 at 11:44 am

    I’m okay with the independent commission thingy so long as it is a blue-ribboned one.

  13. thoreau
    May.7.2004 at 11:49 am

    The Donald. Hah!

  14. dude
    May.7.2004 at 11:59 am

    It will interesting to see if this whole fiasco blows open this administration’s penchant for “rule of law free zones” like Gitmo and enemy combatant status and all that stuff. Who knows what else is going on out there that we haven’t heard about yet.

  15. Steve in CO
    May.7.2004 at 12:06 pm

    Exactly dude. And supposedly it is illegal to classify illegal activity simply because it is, well, illegal. Kind of crime within a crime. Who knows how many layers this onion really has…

  16. thoreau
    May.7.2004 at 12:22 pm

    I keep getting images of the Apprentice in my mind when I think about Rumsfeld being fired:

    (Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld all sit at a conference table in the Cabinet’s meeting room. Across from them sits George Bush with Dick Cheney and Karl Rove to either side.)

    Bush: Rummy, you should have kept your team under control. Those prison atrocities happened under your watch, and there’s no getting around that. We can’t accomplish our goals in Iraq if your soldiers are torturing people, and so I have to say “you’re fired.”

    (Rumsfeld exits the Cabinet meeting room and walks off to a waiting taxi. In the taxi he talks to the camera.)

    Rummy: I knew coming into this that the duration of my tenure in office was a known unknown. It’s been an incredible journey and I don’t regret any of this. I’m sure the remaining members of the team will do an amazing job in transforming the Middle East, and I wish them the best of luck.

    (Meanwhile, Rice and Powell return to the Cabinet suite. Tommy Thompson, Gail Norton, Norm Mineta, and Tom Ridge are surprised to see that Rumsfeld is gone. Hugs all around as Rice and Powell are congratulated on surviving this week’s board room.)

    (The next morning, a groggy Tommy Thompson answers the phone and is told that Bush wants to see all of them at the Pentagon in 90 minutes. They assemble in a conference room.)

    Bush: Your challenge this week is to design a plan for the invasion of….Iran!

    (A map of Iran appears on a screen on the wall.)

    Bush: Each of the teams will have to design a plan for the invasion of Iran. The team with the best plan will earn a trip to my ranch in Texas. The team with the worst plan will see me in the Cabinet room. Somebody is getting fired!

  17. Ken Shultz
    May.7.2004 at 12:52 pm

    Meanwhile the Red Cross released a report detailing all of this abuse, including the photo sessions, back in January…and apparently we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. Video…they’ve got video!

    Did anybody else hear Myers suggest that the reason they didn’t tell anyone about the photos was becuase they didn’t want to endanger the lives of the people who were assaulting Fallujah?

    Huh?

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