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Humpty Dumpty10/24/2003
(Traditional English nursery rhyme)The whispers are getting louder. Humpty Dumpty wasn't pushed, they say. He jumped. The late James Reston famously quipped that "The ship of state is the only vessel that leaks from the top." Perhaps the same could have been said for the five-sided dreadnaught on the Potomac, the source of the now-celebrated "Rumsfeld memo" that appeared in USA Today earlier this week. It is pretty clear that the coalition can win in Afghanistan and Iraq in one way or another, but it will be a long, hard slog.The memo can be understood as a calculated attempt at both self-exculpation and public and Congressional expectations management -- gosh, this stuff is hard! Don't expect results overnight, guys! But if that's what it is, it appears only to have highlighted the smiley-face mendacity of Pentagon press conferences and briefings, to say nothing of the Administration line in general. One senior Republican Congressional official said that he himself had concluded that Mr. Rumsfeld's approach [to Congressional relations in general] was doing harm to the White House and that he had become "a millstone around the president's neck."So Humpty Dumpty is recalibrating. On Thursday afternoon, in an apparent effort to offer a fresh defense against such criticism, Mr. Rumsfeld appeared unannounced at a scheduled Pentagon briefing.Let's return to the canon of English children's literature, shall we? "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I chose it to mean -- nothing less, and nothing more." While the SecDef keeps busy with all this groundskeeping -- hedging, trimming, and applying healthy doses of fertilizer -- the White House's Iraq policy isn't exactly sprouting roses. More follies to follow... Analyst
Original text copyright by the author and MidEastWeb for Coexistence, RA. Posted at MidEastWeb Middle East Web Log at http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000088.htm where your intelligent and constructive comments are welcome. Distributed by MEW Newslist. Subscribe by e-mail to mew-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Please forward by email with this notice and link to and cite this article. Other uses by permission. by Analyst @ 05:18 PM CST [Link] |
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