For a guy who is supposed to be good at playing the Washington game, Donald Rumsfeld certainly seems to have dropped the ball on this one. Called to participate in a grill session before the Senate, he at first declined, saying it was "just politics."
One might admire the candidness of this assessment coming from someone else, but coming from a man who has gotten where is he by doing nothing but "just politics," it rang a little hollow.
It also rang a little stupid, as his initial refusal to appear caused a mini-uproar among the media and bloggers. He ended up appearing dragged to the panel, and caused a lot more attention to be paid as a result. My Bloglines notifier started pinging during the hearing itself, playing up the criticism directed at the Secretary of War Defense by the junior senator from New York.
Am I tired of Rumsfeld's speech habits? Yes. Does it make it ever harder to take him seriously? Yes. Can we agree that asking yourself the questions is really, really annoying? You bet.
For her part, Sen. Clinton deserves a modicum of praise for taking a clear stance on something, ANYTHING, for once. But her constant fine-tuning of her path along the middle of the road has made me too cynical to take it seriously. I immediately wonder what she's up to. Here's what first comes to mind: She knows that even many on the right now think Rummy's a dummy, so she saw this as an opportunity to pick up a couple of points of cred with the left.
Did it work for me? No. Will I vote for her in the primaries? No. What about in the election, against (fill in any Republican here)?
You have to ask?
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