September 12th, 2013
When you live in Washington, one of the things that’s supposed to happen is that, by bumping around casually with folks from the other side you learn to empathize with them and come to understand that they put their pants on one leg at a time, too.
So here’s a Tweet from a guy who just met Don Rumsfeld:
Chatted briefly with Don Rumsfeld as we pulled into DC. He was giddy about seeing his great grand daughter. I was charmed by evil. Ugh.
— Stephen Geer (@stephengeer) September 11, 2013
According to his Twitter profile, Geer isn’t some wet-behind-the-ears college fanboy–he’s a pro who works in the industry. And yet his reaction from meeting Rumsfeld isn’t, Hey, nicer guy than I would have thought.
No, he’s annoyed at himself for being “charmed by evil.”
“Evil”? I’m sorry. Are you fucking kidding?
Let’s pretend we’re going to accept all of the substantive criticisms of Rumsfeld. He was wrong about Iraq. He dictatorially imposed his mistaken views on his subordinates and refused to listen to contrary opinions. At some point he became blinded to incoming evidence because of his own blinkered commitment to his course of action. Even if all of that is true, it doesn’t make him evil. Not even close.
You know who’s evil? Mohammad Atta was evil. And I wouldn’t make such a big deal over Geer not being able to make moral distinctions between Donald Rumsfeld and Mohammad Atta, except that he tweeted this on, you know, the fucking anniversary of September 11.
Twelve years before Donald Rumseld had the pleasure of meeting Stephen Geer, he spent his morning helping to carry wounded colleagues out of the burning Pentagon.
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Jon, I understand the anger, and agree with every word, including the profanity for emphasis. However, you’re a pro, too, and all it does is detract from what you’re saying. Trust me, that’s coming form a guy who loses his verbal cool all the freaking time. Folks just stop listening. Need better from you, you’re a wordsmith with a megaphone, and should be able to express yourself better than I. Best, JMark
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Damn straight! Say it like it is and fire it up a notch.
I smoke non filter Camels, should I switch to filtered Camels to make a wordsmith critic happy?
Pfft!
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How many people did Mohammed Atta kill? How many died because of him? And how many died “because of [Mr. Rumsfeld’s] own blinkered commitment to his course of action”? And it didn’t even matter, Saddam would be swept away by the Arab spring in 2011 like Mubarak and Assad, and we would help, and we would spent a trillion dollars less on that campaign, and Americans wouldn’t be so tired of this endless war. We would just take them all, Qaddafi, Saddam, Assad, our friend Mubarak… If I may rephrase Forest Gumps mother – “Evil is who evil does”. And Mr. Rumsfeld, with his stubbornness and “blinkered commitment to his course of action”, had done too much evil, and not only for this country.
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You believe the Arab Spring would have gone off without a hitch anyway?
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Yep. All the fundamentals were there since 1970s. It would’ve explode anyways. However, my point is that regardless of Arab spring, US can’t do anything outside of the Persian Gulf exactly because we are not welcome there, we only hurting ourselves and our cause by such a imprecise actions!
Just imagine what would happen if 1953 instead a soft coup, US would start a full scale invasion into Iran. We would have an islamic revolution there the same year. -
That’s an interesting argument. I just have a hard time believing one extraordinary event in the Middle East less than 10 years before another extraordinary event in the Middle East are mutually unrelated.
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yea the civility is gone from almost all major news outlets. listen to any talk radio show and you here just as nasty stuff about Obama from people who meet him.
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Would have, could have, might have, wouldn’t be, would, would, would. Bull dung. Speculation on what would have happened is idle. Would the Arab Spring have happened if the US had not deposed two dictatorial regimes? No, it wouldn’t have.
Reading that, you probably thought, “How do you know it wouldn’t have?” or “Of course it would have happened anyway.”
How do you know? I think my speculation is manifestly more plausible than yours: Without the US having deposed two dictatorial regimes, and scared one more into giving up its WMD, there would have been no “Arab spring.” (And that has sure turned out just swell, anyway, hasn’t it.)
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What Mohammed Atta set in motion has resulted in thousands and thousands of deaths. We would not have gone to war with Iraq were it not for Mohammed Atta.
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Pathetic moral equivalence that fails any notion of morality. To even attempt to equate the flying of a civilian jet liner into a building loaded with innocent civilians to the actions of a lawful official of a recognized nation is beyond idiocy.
It too is evil.
You must really hate Obama for the all the deaths in Libya, and the mess he left behind by abandoning them to Islamists and tribal warlords.
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Given Saddam’s track record, probably fewer people died in Iraq in 2003-2010 than would have died if Saddam had remained in power. And if Obama had not poured the fruits of victory into the sand, we would have been in a much better position to influence subsequent events than we in fact were/are. The “Arab Spring” is looking to make matters worse on balance instead of better, and Iran’s influence continues to grow. Both from a humanitarian standpoint and with respect to the interests of civilization, we were better off with Rumsfeld.
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9/11 must bring out the weirdos. Yesterday I was walking back to the office at about 7:00 after a going-away happy hour for a colleague. A jogger about to cross 15th and L asked: “Oh, is today the anniversary of the day that plane hit the Pentagon?” To which I replied: “yes.” He then followed with (as he started jogging across the street): “Not everyone accepts American corporate power.” Well ok then.
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“Twelve years before Donald Rumseld had the pleasure of meeting Stephen Geer, he spent his morning helping to carry wounded colleagues out of the burning Pentagon.” – Another problem in this country is way too many armchair warriors. Can you imagine Alexander the Great ordering his troops to start a 10 year campaign in Persia and staying in Macedonia? Or Napoleon Bonapart sending his army to Egypt and staying in France? Or an older emperor Napoleon I of France, who had an Empire to rule over, sending the Great Army to Russia and staying in Paris? Can you imagine generals Sherman, Eisenhower or Pershing waging wars from a comfort of Washington D.C.? Those were the days when people were making mistakes too, however they used to stand for their decisions. Now we have a race of armchair warriors who think themselves as demigods and are extremely surprised, even insulted by their own mortality! If Mr. Rumsfeld had at least 1% as much of integrity as he had an excess of ” blinkered commitment to his course of action”, he would relocate his office to Fallujah as Sherman or Eisenhower would. And then no one would ever call Mr. Rumsfeld evil, or cowardly, while Mr. Rumsfeld himself would have much more experience in ” helping to carry wounded colleagues out of the burning” buildings and vehicles!
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You seem confused about the structure of the US military.
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“Can you imagine generals Sherman, Eisenhower or Pershing waging wars from a comfort of Washington D.C.? ”
No, but I can imagine Linclon, Stanton, and Halleck doing so, which are the closer equivalents to Rumsfeld (a former Navy pilot)’s position post-9/11 than ANY of the examples you cite.
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Andril, the system that you describe died the moment Helmuth von Moltke (the elder) became Chef der Generalgrosserstab of the Prussian Heeres in 1857, or more to the point, at Sedan in 1870. Military command structures were forever changed with the arrival of centralized planning from the General Staff, which determined force structure, mobilization, and officer promotion and training. That’s Rumsfeld, in a nutshell. Not Napoleon Bonaparte, who fought in a tent behind the lines (and only took to horse when needed).
Your shrillness is ahistorical and rife with logical fallacies.
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So, you think Donald Rumsfeld was the equivalent of emperors and generals? He’s a secretary of defense — or, if you like, a minister of war. Ministers stay with their kings, and kings (or their elected counterparts in democracies) mostly haven’t gone off to fight for some time. The last American president to sniff a battlefield during combat was Lincoln, and even he was at a (not-so-)safe distance. And the last British king to take the field was George II, over 250 years ago. Comparing Rumsfeld to Napoleon is ridiculous, as is comparing him to any general.
Also, the fact that you seem to think Geer’s crack about Rumsfeld was in some sense justified, and that Rumsfeld should have moved himself into a war zone because then no one would be able to criticize him, marks you as a person to avoid.
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Remember when Henry Stimson relocated his office to Normandy? Now there was a man!
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Hey, don’t drag Stimson into this! After his first stint as Secretary of War under Taft from 1911-1913, he volunteered for WWI and served in France as an artillery colonel!
So Andrii’s historical and military ignorance aside, he/she WOULD be justified in criticizing Rumsfeld for not reenlisting when he left DOD. After all, he was only 74 . . .
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Given that Rumsfeld paid his membership dues to the Cap & Gown Club at Princeton by taking bets on how many one-handed push-ups he could do, I’m sure he was a spry 74.
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We all know this is how the Left is, all of it. It’s one great projection: claim to know shades of grey, but you’re either with us or against us, and those against are evil.
So Stephen Greer is kind of a dick. The real kind, the kind that doesn’t know it is. This is 100% like the Left I used to be on: and one of the reasons I left.
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Simply that the tweeter uses one of those dorky “D.I.Y. Mad Men” avatars reveals him to be fully vile
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[…] As Jonathan Last writes, “‘Evil’? I’m sorry. Are you f***ing kidding?” […]
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So Rumsfeld is evil because? And what of Obama? For whose campaign Greer has worked? How many Americans are dead… will not receive needed medical care… losing insurance… losing their businesses… their savings… retirement… hope… one could go on… because of the man whose presidency Greer worked to achieve? Does Greer really want to talk about evil? Does he really?
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Saddam would be swept away by the Arab spring in 2011 like Mubarak and Assad
It’s hard to believe that just two years ago Assad was still in power.
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Steven Geer and people like him have never encountered true “Evil”. Had they ever been confronted with it they would know the difference. Steven Geer is a woose. They talk a good game about tolarence and acceptance until it is their loved ones falling 80 stories to avoid burning to death. Until it is themselves or someone near to them that is being raped of beheaded. If it happens to them they would be the first to breach the White House gates, push the President aside and mash down on the nuke launch button several times.
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“According to his Twitter profile, Geer isn’t some wet-behind-the-ears college fanboy–he’s a pro who works in the industry. And yet his reaction from meeting Rumsfeld isn’t, Hey, nicer guy than I would have thought.
No, he’s annoyed at himself for being “charmed by evil.”No, I’m afraid that’s the only time on this page that you have been wrong, sir. Geer has chosen to remain a wet-behind-the-ears college fanboy who will never truly mature until he can get past this juvenile desire to make his domestic opponents into evildoers and monsters.
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[…] a DC man outs himself as an idiot 140 letters at a […]
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JMark, if you had something to say, your pompousness might detract from it.
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[…] goes on inside the typical libturd brain 'thought' is a bit of reach but….. Ace of Spades HQ Living the Politicized Life Because being liberal means that every aspect of life – no matter how mundane, human and […]
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Stephen Geer was the Director of Email and Online fundraising for Obama’s 2008 campaign. Gee, I wonder if he was the one who turned off the credit card verification system and allowed donations from foreign cardholders. Maybe he knows who Doodad Pro really is!
Jim Treacher September 23, 2013 at 3:02 am
Jonathan’s judicious use of profanity doesn’t detract from shit.