A vote of confidence for Rumsfeld

From The Washington Times:

Several retired generals who worked with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, including a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, yesterday decried calls for the secretary's resignation from other retired officers.

President Bush repeated his support for his point man in the war against terrorists.

"I think what we see happening with retired general officers is bad for the military, bad for civil-military relations and bad for the country," retired Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs under Mr. Bush, said in an interview with The Washington Times. He said he would elaborate his views in an op-ed essay.

"I'm hurt," said retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Michael P. DeLong, who was deputy commander of U.S. Central Command during the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and briefed Mr. Rumsfeld at the Pentagon.

"When we have an administration that is currently at war, with a secretary of defense that has the confidence of the president and basically has done well -- no matter what grade you put on there, he has done well -- to call for his resignation right now is not good for the country," he said.

Whenever a retired general has attacked this administration and its handling of the war the Democrat Party’s Ministry of Propaganda and Enlightenment has jumped all over it as proof of the incompetence of the president and his advisors.

We are told that because these critics are retired they no longer have to “toe the party line” and can speak the truth. I wonder if the MSM will give this vote of confidence the same prominence.

Another thing I notice about some of the retired critics is that they held their highest rank and position under the Clinton administration. This means that they were actively aiding and abetting the serious damage that the co-presidents did to our armed forces. Could the fact that the current administration has largely fixed the problems caused by the last one be at least partially behind the sniping?

I seem to remember that one member of the Clinton-era JCS took responsibility and did the right thing when brought face-to-face with what he had helped do. Perhaps it is time some of Clinton’s other enablers did the same thing.