Ted Kennedy: Puppet of the Insurgents

I'd like to know where a man as integrity-challenged as Ted Kennedy gets off telling the Secretary of Defense to resign.

Kennedy deserved to go to prison for his deeds rather than be reelected to the Senate for over three decades. The man is not fit to tell anyone to resign.

That fact makes it all the more offensive that he was the one leading the charge against Donald Rumsfeld, as he came under intense fire on Capitol Hill when appearing before a Senate panel.

From the Washington Post:

"Any who say we have lost or are losing are flat wrong," he declared in an opening statement, appealing for perseverance. "We are not."

The defense chief's defiant stance was echoed by visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari, who is to meet with President Bush today. Setting a specific date for U.S. withdrawal "would be walking into the enemy," he said in a Blair House interview with Washington Post reporters and editors.

...In the day's most dramatic confrontation, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), a leading critic of the Iraq campaign, told Rumsfeld that the war has become a "seeming intractable quagmire." He recited a long list of what he called "gross errors and mistakes" in the U.S. military campaign and concluded with a renewed appeal for Rumsfeld to step down.

"In baseball, it's three strikes, you're out," Kennedy said before a standing-room-only session of the Armed Services Committee. "What is it for the secretary of defense? Isn't it time for you to resign?"

Rumsfeld paused, appearing to collect his thoughts and composure.

"Well, that is quite a statement," he responded, adding that none of the three four-star generals seated with him "agrees with you that we're in a quagmire and that there's no end in sight." Indeed, each of the officers -- Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf; Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq; and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- then affirmed as much.

Rumsfeld also noted that he had offered to resign twice and that President Bush decided not to accept the offers -- a reference to a period in the spring of 2004 when evidence of detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad became public.

It was as if the insurgents had orchestrated Kennedy's every move, as if our enemies were pulling the strings, using our own citizens, SENATORS, to divide us.

I think it would be wise for the American people to believe Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari's assessment of things in Iraq rather than the rantings of Ted Kennedy.

Kennedy had decided long ago to see nothing positive happening in Iraq. Back on January 27, 2005, just days before the Iraqi elections, Kennedy delivered a speech at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

He said then, "We have reached the point that a prolonged American military presence in Iraq is no longer productive for either Iraq or the United States. The U.S. military presence has become part of the problem, not part of the solution."

Obviously, he's been undermining the administration for months. He's been spreading his negative message, happily picked up by arms of the MSM and other left-leaning, anti-American outlets like Al Jazeera, in the name of discrediting President Bush and his policies.

Of course, in the process of selfishly trying to score political points, Kennedy has become part of the problem, not part of the solution.

I think this exchange was very revealing:

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) warned, "I fear that American public opinion is tipping away from this effort."

If there is such tipping among Americans, Rumsfeld allowed, "I have a feeling they're getting pushed."

I have a feeling Rumsfeld is right.