Bicycle Chief's Court Astrologer

Bids minions and underlings farewell.

On my personal Hit Parade of GOP Speeches I Want to Hear, this came in at #3.

Rumsfeld: Worst time as Pentagon chief was the Abu Ghraib revelations

By: ROBERT BURNS - Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- In an emotional farewell, Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday the single worst day of his nearly six years as secretary of defense occurred when he learned of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse in Iraq.

Speaking to a gathering of Pentagon employees 10 days before he is scheduled to leave office, Rumsfeld defended his record on Iraq and Afghanistan and warned of "dire consequences were we to fail" in Iraq.

He also said he might write a book about his tenure at the Pentagon and he predicted that his successor, Robert Gates, would do a good job. He declined to say what advice he had offered Gates, who was confirmed by the Senate this week.

Rumsfeld choked up briefly while recalling a woman in Alaska giving him a bracelet last August as a reminder of the sacrifices by soldiers of the Army's 172nd Stryker Brigade, whose year-long tour in Iraq was extended by four months to help try to quell sectarian violence in Baghdad. Showing it still on his wrist, Rumsfeld recalled that he told the woman he would wear the green bracelet until the 172nd came home to Alaska.

He spoke at length about his concern that the United States not let Iraq and Afghanistan collapse.

"We have every chance in the world of succeeding in both those countries, but only if we have the patience and only if we have the staying power," he said. Asked about the bipartisan Iraq Study Group's recommendations for a change in approach to the Iraq war, Rumsfeld said none of the suggestions were new.

"I can't think of a thing that anyone's thought of that General (Peter) Pace and General (John) Abizaid and those folks have not been working on and analyzing and studying and adjusting to over time," he said, referring to the top two generals overseeing the Iraq war. He said the Pentagon had sent its advice to the White House on possible new approaches.

In a question-and-answer session, he was asked what were his best day and his worst day.

"Clearly, the worst day was Abu Ghraib, seeing what went on there and feeling so deeply sorry that that happened," he said without hestitation, referring to the scandal in the spring of 2004 that triggered worldwide condemnation and prompted him to twice offer his resignation to President Bush at that time. Bush rejected those offers.

…

Oh how awful for you. That the fruits of the torture regimes you and your boss approved with a wink and a nod and a nudge were actually caught on film, and some tiny glimpse of your filthy crimes against democracy made it into the public eye.

Yeah, a bad fucking day for Rumsfeld.

Not as bad as, say, being rendered off into a CIA dungeon forever, or waterboarded, or getting your genitals Delco-ed for the patriotic amusement of the sadists and mouthbreathers who invariably gravitate towards jobs where they can abuse helpless victims, and who no doubt toasted the day their Secretary of Defense let them off of their leashes.

Still, boo hoo for po’ Rummy.

However, as I said above, in my Top Three Republican Speeches Wish List of the 2006-2007 Season, this one I was looking forward to third.

Second-most (he said, poaching his own comments from Gilliard’s Place), I am looking forward to the State of the Union next month. Especially looking forward to the quick camera cuts between Jim Webb and Preznit McDrinky.

Especially with Speaker Pelosi framing the shot behind him and veeery quietly singing that lyric from “Moving Out” (“…working too hard can give you a heart attack, ack, ack, ack…”) just loud enough for Vice President Harkonnen to hear it.

But even more than that, I am looking forward to Bush’s resignation speech towards the end of next year.

After his steadily accelerating Presidential Death Spiral leaps into the accretion-vortex-around-a-black-hole’s-event-horizon zone.

After the last of the Old Guard give up trying to beat some sense into the same imbecile the rammed into the White House. The same imbecile who couldn’t have found Afghanistan seven years ago with Google Map, an armada of spy satellites, and Karl Rove whispering the GPS coordinates in his ear…that they relentlessly sold to the Great Wad as a combo platter of Alexander the Great (the Conqueror), Abraham Lincoln (the Emancipator), and Hammu-fucking-rabi (the giver of Laws ever so much Gooder and Godlier than that quaint, pre-9/11 old-man-smelling “Constitution”.)

After he loses control of the last of his pet Major Media Whores, which will resemble in every meaningful way a waterhead losing control of his bowels on crowded bus.

After it finally becomes irrefutably clear to all but that hard-core, hard-wired, flint-headed Christopathic base that his debacle has not only strengthened our enemies, but put us at their mercy, on their home field and on their timetable.

After the subpoenas starting falling like rain on Mt. Waialeale, and grand juries and Special Prosecutors begin to tsunami down the White House corridors one after another after another.


After Bill Kristol or Brit Hume or Jerry Falwell or Newt Gingrich (or all of them) make that lonely metaphorical Barry Goldwater slog up to Dubya’s Fortress of Mollitude and tell him he has got to go or he’ll bring their whole Wingnut Ponsi Scheme down around him.

After Bar and Poppy and Jebbie and Neil and all the rest of the S-Addams Family form up their WASPy iron ring around the Bicycle Chief and tell him that if he stays in office any longer he will soil the family name of the Mayberry Medici so ineradicably that all the King’s Bakers and all the King’s Roves will never, ever be able to wash or slime the blood out.

After all of that comes the speech I live for.

Because when you combine Dubya’s basic weak, peevish, self-pitying, megalomaniac nature with a double-helping of Dutch courage courtesy of Mr. Daniels, it should make Nixon's "My Mommy was a fucking saint!" meltdown look positively Churchillian.