Rumsfeld Redeploys to Right-Wing Think Tank

[laststeamtrain]

Rumsfeld Redeploys to Right-Wing Think Tank

Bill Berkowitz*

OAKLAND, California, Sep 13 (IPS) - While General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker were giving the U.S. Congress an upbeat assessment of the situation on the ground in Iraq this week, one of the chief architects of the war was preparing to redeploy to a West Coast conservative think tank.

Once he was the "it" guy; everything he said was treated as the gospel truth. He took on celebrity-like status: The Wall Street Journal's editorial board member, Claudia Rosett, described his press briefings on the war in Afghanistan as "the best new show on television." CNN called him a "virtual rock star" and the Fox News Channel described him as "a babe magnet for the 70-year old set". President George W. Bush dubbed him a "matinee idol".

<snip>

"I have asked Don to join the distinguished group of scholars that will pursue new insights on the direction of thinking that the United States might consider going forward," Raisian said.

Not everyone on the Stanford University campus was as upbeat about Rumsfeld as Raisan. "It is a moral disgrace," said Stanford American history Professor Bart Bernstein, an opponent of the war in Iraq. "He is not a person of intellectual merit; he is not an academic. As a policy-maker, his only claim to fame was, at best, flawed and morally corrupt.

"On the grounds of intellectual judgment and moral character, he would seem to be a markedly inappropriate choice," Bernstein said. "This should be treated as a collective embarrassment." Earlier this year, retired Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, former commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), began service as the first Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Institution. Senator Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican defeated in his bid for re-election, signed on to head up a new programme called "America's Enemies", which will be located at the Ethics and Public Policy Centre, a Washington-based think tank formerly headed by neoconservative hawk Elliott Abrams.

<snip>

In addition to shopping a memoir and giving interviews, Rumsfeld will now sort out his ideas from the comfort of Stanford University. Do not be surprised if Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joins him there in 2009.

<more>

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39249
*

Cue up the Jay & The Americans: "ONLY IN AMERICA"...

Cream rises, turds float.

Oliver Stone should do a scummy rummy biopic. Chris Cooper in the lead?

[Xipe Totec]

1. Right-Wing Think Tank? Now there's an Oxymoron n/t

[YOY]

2. Was the position of "Senior Twat" open?

I had no idea!

[BootinUp]

3. Stanford is really beginning to

give off a stench.