Rumsfeld on Charlie Rose

U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld made an even greater fool of himself for a full hour. Rumsfeld tried to railroad Rose on a number of questions by giving standard, "well that's not what I'm saying" kind of answers and saying constantly that he "is not going to be judgmental."

At one point Rumsfeld said that Iraqi's spoke "Iraqi." At another point he said that his relationship with Iran was wonderful. In general, he seemed generally uninformed about any of the issues and ill-equipped at thinking about anything past the first dimension: "[I]'m not smart enough to think I could answer your question and think it is my judgment."

Q: Do you believe the American media in Iraq is doing a bad job? Do you believe that?

A: I'm not going to be judgmental . . . I don't get up in the morning and make it my job to evaluate that. I've got more important things to do.

Rose spent at least fifteen minutes just getting one simple question of his answered, to which Rumsfeld gave thirteen and a half minutes of absolute garbage. How can one person be speaking and give virtually no information in anything he says?

You could tell that Charlie was getting annoyed as time went on. His voice raised and he was more willing to interrupt Rumsfeld as he started on one of this premade talking points. No flimsy Fox News Cheney-style safe harbor here. Work it Charlie!