Pentagon Pets, the Horror Story

The stupidity of accusing a McClatchy newspaper military columnist of colluding with the war criminals surpasses the usual atrocity level that executive branch lies have reached.

This is something I had missed when it was published Thursday, and want readers to have the benefit of this example of the incredible lengths the administration will go to to deny its stupefyingly moronic actions.

DiRita added: “There are plenty of examples to the contrary — reaching out to people who specifically disagreed with us. One example I recall is Joe Galloway — a persistent critic and apparently popular with military readers. He came in and met Secretary Rumsfeld and we had other interactions.”

Now that’s a real knee-slapper: Me as a poster boy for how Rumsfeld and DiRita “reached out” to their harshest critics even as they stroked and promoted and schemed to embed the old reliables to wax enthusiastic about a war that was going from bad to worse.

Let the record show that Rumsfelds' folks reached out to me on these few occasions:

* In early summer of 2003, half a dozen of us were invited to an off-the-record lunch with Rumsfeld in the Pentagon. The defense secretary seemed to have a poor grasp of the reality on the ground in Iraq and was still declaring that we'd do no nation-building there. He saw no insurgency, only a handful of “dead-enders".

* In October 2005, DiRita called to invite me to travel with Rumsfeld to the Middle East and Australia. I declined because it conflicted with a long-booked graduation speech I was to give at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz. to a class of new Air Force F-16 fighter pilots that included my nephew. DiRita was stunned that I wouldn't drop a bunch of fighter pilots to be schmoozed by his boss.

* In November 2005, DiRita invited me to a “one-on-one” lunch with Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. This one I accepted. I arrived to find across the table Rumsfeld, the then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace; Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Dick Cody; Joint Staff Director Lt. Gen. Walter Sharp and DiRita. We went at it hammer and tongs for an hour and a half over their conduct of the war and the errors that were costing the lives of American soldiers. As I left, I told Rumsfeld that I'd continue to point out those mistakes every week in my column.

* In April 2006, DiRita sent me an e-mail telling me that my most recent column was “silly". That column had discussed an expensive war game the Pentagon conducted about a U.S. attack on a thinly disguised country that obviously was Iran.
(snip)
There’s little doubt that this program violated the laws against covert propaganda operations mounted against the American public by their own government. But in this administration, there’s no one left to enforce that law or any of the other laws the Bush operatives have been busy violating.

The real crime is that the scheme worked. The television network bosses swallowed the bait, the hook, the line and the sinker, and they have yet to answer for it. (Emphasis added.)

There is something I've said before, that constantly typifies maladministration stunts. There is a textbook being written before our eyes of how not to run a country. It is "The 2001-2008 Executive Branch". It's a horror story.

********************************************************

The USDA wants to prevent a meat processor from improving testing of its products, by testing every cow. Not going to do the job itself, your public servants are trying to keep high standards from infecting other beef producers' profits.

In a federal appeals court last week, government lawyers, presumably with straight faces, argued that Creek-stone should not be allowed to perform voluntary additional testing on its product. Why? Because, a government lawyer argued, it might lead to "false assurances."

False assurances? Europe tests every cow it puts into the food system – yet the U.S. government tests less than 1 percent of all American beef cattle. Under those circumstances, how certain can regulators possibly be that their assurances are true?
(snip)
The Bush administration is protecting someone in this case, and it's not consumers. Nor is it the public interest.

That's typical of this historically horrible executive branch. Determined as ever, the officials appointed for their sympathies to industry will insure you are not safe.