The Republican Party is full of hypocrits and I am getting angry at John Kerry's silence.

The Party supported Bush's position to stick with Rumsfeld - but now - they are all jumping ship.

Bush and the Republicans stated during the campaign that Rumsfeld was necessary to provide a continuity in leadership for the troops in Iraq.

Now Rumsfeld makes one more of his many stupide remarks and everyone is jumping ship and they want him to resign.

This party has to be taken to task - where are the Democrats who campaigned on the need to remove him - why aren't they saying we told you so!!!!

Where is John Kerry?

The only thing that changed to motivate the Republicans to say something was they won the election for the presidency - this is the most obvious sign of partisanship which clearly affects our troops and our position in Iraq and the Dems need to bring it to light!

Posted on Thu, Dec. 16, 2004

SPEECH

Lott: Replace defense chief

By MELISSA M. SCALLAN


BILOXI - U.S. Sen. Trent Lott doesn't believe Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should resign immediately, but he does think Rumsfeld should be replaced sometime in the next year.

"I'm not a fan of Secretary Rumsfeld," Lott, R-Mississippi, told the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday morning. "I don't think he listens enough to his uniformed officers."

Rumsfeld has been criticized since a soldier asked him last week why the combat vehicles used in the war in Iraq don't have the proper armor. Both Rumsfeld and President Bush have said more vehicle armor will be shipped to Iraq.

Lott said the United States needs more troops to help with the war. The country also needs a plan to leave Iraq once elections are over at the end of January.

Lott doesn't think Rumsfeld is necessarily the person to carry out that plan.

"I would like to see a change in that slot in the next year or so," Lott said. "I'm not calling for his resignation, but I think we do need a change at some point."

On another military issue, Lott said he hopes the Base Realignment and Closure Commission will consider closing bases overseas rather than in the United States.

"I think we're looking at closures at home before looking at other parts of the world," he said.

Keesler Air Force Base and the Seabee Base in Gulfport most likely will be spared, Lott said, but Naval Station Pascagoula could be affected.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Melissa Scallan can be reached at 896-0541 or at mmscallan@sunherald.com.

Bayh: Rumsfeld Should Resign Over Iraq Mistakes






Democrats start echoing calls for Rumsfeld resignation

http://www.wishtv.com

(December 17, 2004) - Indiana Senator Evan Bayh is joining several other senators in calling for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Bayh told several interviewers that Rumsfeld has not shown he can learn from his mistakes in handling the Iraq war.

He told National Public Radio that he has lost confidence in Rumsfeld.

Several senators, including Republicans John McCain of Arizona and Trent Lott of Mississippi, have publicly criticized Rumsfeld in recent days.

Bayh is a Democrat and a member of the Senate's Armed Services Committee.

He told The Indianapolis Star that he doesn't like to call for someone's resignation, but Rumsfeld should be held accountable for his mistakes.

(Associated Press.)

And Republicans continue to express concerns...

Now - why is it that Rumsfeld was just as inept before November 2nd - and since then people are calling for his resignation and expressing no confidence...

This hypocrisy demands to be questioned and attacked and brought to the fore...

Coleman expresses concern about Rumsfeld's leadership
Updated: 12-17-2004 09:52:44 AM

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senator Norm Coleman says he's "deeply troubled" about whether the Pentagon has done enough to provide armored vehicles to troops in Iraq.

And the Minnesota Republican says the buck stops with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Coleman told The Associated Press he has serious concerns about Rumsfeld's leadership.

The company that provides the armored vehicles says it can make more of them, contradicting Rumsfeld's claim that the Pentagon is getting them as quickly as possible.

Coleman's comments came a day after the state's other senator, Democrat Mark Dayton, asked President Bush to investigate and seek the resignations of anyone found responsible for failing to supply the vehicles.

Coleman says he's not calling for Rumsfeld to resign, but he wants better answers.

Knew it was only a matter of time before Senators would buckle under the pressure of the White House - after all - Bush ran on a more of teh same - stay the course platform - why should we expect him to run a competent foreign policy or war strategy now...

Posted on Mon, Dec. 20, 2004

Rumsfeld supported by leading senators
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/10456766.htm

WASHINGTON — Any chance that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld might be forced from office soon appeared to end Sunday.

Leading senators of both parties in charge of national security and foreign affairs committees said he should stay at his post.

Sen. John Warner, a Virginia Republican and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Richard Lugar, Indiana Republican and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said this is not the time to change leadership at the Pentagon, even as they acknowledged that serious mistakes in U.S. policy have been made in Iraq.

They were echoed by the ranking Democrats on their respective panels, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan and Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware. All spoke on NBC's “Meet the Press.”

Rumsfeld's job appeared in jeopardy recently as critics said they lacked confidence in him, given the state of affairs in Iraq.

After the defense secretary appeared dismissive recently when answering a U.S. soldier who had asked why military vehicles in Iraq lacked armor, calls for Rumsfeld's resignation echoed not only from Democrats, but from influential Republicans including Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Trent Lott of Mississippi, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Susan Collins of Maine and Norm Coleman of Minnesota.

Eyebrows also rose in the nation's capital last week when one of the influential conservative intellectuals who has championed the war in Iraq — William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard — penned an essay calling for Rumsfeld's head.

If Senate committee chairmen with the stature of Warner and Lugar had joined those calls, the political winds might have been too strong for President Bush to resist. But Warner and Lugar held the line, as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee did Friday.

“We should not at this point in time entertain any idea of changing those responsibilities in the Pentagon,” Warner said.

“We really can't go through that ordeal now,” Lugar said, contending that it would be too disruptive to change leaders at the Pentagon.

Levin said that while he is a Rumsfeld critic, replacing him would make no significant difference so long as any defense secretary executes Bush's policies.

White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card reiterated Bush's confidence in Rumsfeld on Sunday.

“Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a spectacular job,” Card said on ABC-TV's “This Week.”

— By Robert A. Rankin/

Knight Ridder Newspapers

But other Republicans may balk at what the Senate leadership is saying - Frist wants to be president so he won't buck the prez...but maybe Frist will get bucked...

Republican pack turns on battle-scarred Rumsfeld
Roy Eccleston, Washington correspondent
21dec04

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/commo...55E2703,00.html

DONALD Rumsfeld's golden days as the infallible Washington warrior look like ancient history as a posse of congressional Republicans hunts the US Defence Secretary over his management of the Iraq war.

While few Republicans have publicly called for his head - and the White House insists he is going nowhere - Mr Rumsfeld, 72, is under siege for a haughty management style that critics say contributed to the problems in Iraq.
The latest focus for criticism is a string of complaints from families of soldiers killed in Iraq that the Pentagon chief had not bothered to sign personally the letters informing them of the deaths.

Instead, Mr Rumsfeld's signatures were done by machine, a move condemned by critics within Congress as "insensitive" and as showing a "lack of leadership".

Mr Rumsfeld acknowledged yesterday he had not signed the condolence letters, but would do so from now on. The White House confirmed that George W. Bush does sign such letters by hand.

"I wrote and approved the now-more-than 1000 letters sent to family members and next of kin of each of the servicemen and women killed in military action," the Defence Secretary said. "While I have not individually signed each one, in the interest of ensuring expeditious contact with grieving family members, I have directed that in the future I sign each letter."

Mr Rumsfeld was at the peak of his powers after the US victory in Afghanistan, but has not looked good since the Abu Ghraib jail scandal, which prompted widespread calls for his resignation.

He was also damaged badly earlier this month when he sought to dismiss the concerns of a soldier who demanded to know why US military vehicles in Iraq were not properly armoured.

Well used to Democrat barbs, Mr Rumsfeld is now taking friendly fire as well. William Kristol, editor of influential conservative magazine The Weekly Standard, has called on him to quit. And Republican mavericks in the Senate, Chuck Hagel and John McCain, both Vietnam veterans, said in the past week that Mr Rumsfeld, who served in the US Navy in the 1950s, did not have their confidence.

Senator McCain argues that at least another 100,000 troops are needed to secure Iraq. Yesterday, Senator Hagel said the controversy over the letters underscored Mr Rumsfeld's leadership failures.

Calling it "astounding", Senator Hagel said: "It does reflect how out of touch they are and how dismissive they are.

"If the President can find the time to do that, why can't the Secretary of Defence?"

A sign of the breadth of discontent among Republicans came last week when former Senate majority leader Trent Lott said that he was no fan of Mr Rumsfeld. "I don't think he listens to his uniformed officers," he said, adding he wanted to see a new defence secretary "in the next year or so".

But other senior Republicans, including senator John Warner, who heads the Armed Services Committee, stressed it was important there be no disruptive changes at the Pentagon.

Senator Richard Lugar, who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, agreed it would be too great an ordeal to go through confirmation hearings for a new defence secretary, but that Mr Rumsfeld must be "held accountable".

Most importantly, Mr Bush has made clear that of all his cabinet it is Mr Rumsfeld he most wants to stay put.

Hosing down the congressional anger, White House chief of staff Andrew Card said Mr Rumsfeld had the full support of the President. He was "doing a spectacular job and the President has great confidence in him".

For his part, Mr Rumsfeld wants to stay around long enough to see his belief in a smaller, more mobile military vindicated by success in Iraq.

Still, Mr Rumsfeld's discomfort has provided fodder for cartoonists and columnists. In one cartoon, Republicans run out of Congress announcing they are going to the Pentagon to throw rocks at Mr Rumsfeld. "Can Democrats come too?" asks a watching politician.

The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd put Mr Rumsfeld in place of Jimmy Stewart in the film classic It's a Wonderful Life to portray the world as it would have been without him. Osama bin Laden had been caught; Saddam Hussein had been overthrown without US troops; Vice-President Dick Cheney was running a bait shop in Wyoming; and in perhaps the unkindest cut of all, Mr Rumsfeld's wife Joyce was married to the French ambassador.

The so-called attacks by republican party senators or spokespeople on Rummy or anything else is just posturing so they can quote themselves on down to road to their constituents. They'll be able to brag that they're not in Bush's hip pocket, that they're independent when they see 'wrong-doing', but just got out-voted.

It's all lies, just like their boss has been feeding the American public since 2000. Don't pat them on the back or be taken in by their so-called criticisms of the pretender's methods or decisions. Don't be fooled by anything they say........wait and watch for the important signals of their loyalty to the Americans who granted them power.

Watch how they vote. Votes count, sound-bites just fool people.

You are absolutely right - they ar ejust trying to look responsible and interested and like they really give a hoot about what's going on - but nothing will happen - nothing wil change - more of the shame - did i say shame - I meant same...or did I?

AND WHERE IS JOHN KERRY?

Why can't he speak out - who stole his tongue?