2/19/2005
James Taranto of Opinionjournal.com’s Best of The Web Today posted this commentary yesterday:
Blogger Joe Fairbanks notes a hilarious exchange between Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D., Calif.) and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. As the latter testified Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee, the former tried but failed to catch him in a misstatement of fact:
Sanchez: Unfortunately, as I said, this committee has had a hard time assessing where we really stand with the Iraqi army as an effective fighting force. Over the past year, we’ve received incredibly widely fluctuating estimates of that. And I think you have a real credibility problem on this issue.
Rumsfeld: Fluctuations of what?
Sanchez: The fluctuations of–the numbers that you bandy around about how many troops we really have out there that are Iraqi police, et cetera, et cetera. . . .
Rusmfeld: Now, you say we bandy around numbers. They’re not my numbers. I don’t invent them. They come from Gen. Petraeus. . . .
Sanchez: I have Petraeus’s numbers. They’re different than your numbers, by the way.
Rumsfeld: Well, what’s the date? They aren’t different because these came from Petraeus. He may have two sets of numbers, but they are not different if the date’s the same. The date on my paper here is Feb. 14. What’s yours?
Sanchez: Dec. 20.
Rumsfeld: Not surprising there’s a difference.
Sometimes it seems as though Congress is run by a bunch of amateurs.
Okay, despite the fact that I’m more addicted to Taranto’s BoTW than I am to caffeine, I’m going to disagree in one small way… It’s not Congress which is looking amateurish these days, it’s the Democratic Party. And Ms. Sanchez is a perfect case in point.
Anyway, I’ve harped on this theme with the DNC too many time over the past few years, so I won’t go there again, for now. I’m just glad to see I’m not the only one whose taken notice of the trend.
David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com
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