Rummy has a meltdown

BOO! Halloween is here, and the boogyman is... Donald Rumsfeld. Actually, considering the increasing violence in Iraq, making October the deadliest month this year for Americans, maybe Rumsfeld is the grim reaper.

The press conference above is a pretty good example of why Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should be fired. Of course, that's not going to happen before the mid-term elections.

Olbermann puts is succinctly when he summarizes the press conference this way - "the only penalty apparent in the Bush administration's purported plan to establish benchmarks for the government of Iraq - insulting anyone who dares ask what the consequences are of failing to meet to meet those targets."

Rummy telling reporters to "just back off" isn't going to get him, or this administration, anywhere, and will likely simply encourage reporters to get more aggressive than they normally would have. The press has every right to ask these questions, and it isn't going to stop. It's the press' duty to report on these matters, and to hold the government accountable. By the way, we are over 100 Americans killed in Iraq now; as of this writing, we are at 101 for the month of October, the third deadliest since the war began. And we have a defense secretary telling reporters to back off? Rumsfeld needs a serious reality check.

What drives me crazy about Rumsfeld is that he's mismanaged this war since before it began, and he's mismanaged it by micromanaging. I'll have many more thoughts on this in the next few days - I just finished reading Woodward's State of Denial, and it's a pretty damning indictment of this administration and it's attitude toward the execution of the War in Iraq.

Quick footnote to this piece - Rumsfeld's mannerism of asking a question and then immediately answering it drives me nuts. He has one of the most annoying ways of speaking that I've ever heard. (I know, considering that his policies dictate the fate of millions of people, I shouldn't be nitpicking, but STILL.)