By far, the prickliest interview i've ever watched.

I didn't realize how old Rumself was though... too old.

2/24/2011 12:07:13 AM

How did this go?

2/24/2011 10:08:29 AM

it wasn't very exciting. The 2 of them knew too well where the other was coming from IMO for it to create conflict. The battle lines were drawn pretty well. JS would just walk up and see how close he could get to the line

"would you agree that ..."
yes
"ok, so would you agree that..."
yes
"and would you agree that..."
no, that's going too far

Rumsfeld is going to admit mistakes within a certain, approved, domain, and that's pretty much all there is to see.

Someone could embed...

2/24/2011 10:54:17 AM

^this

2/24/2011 11:00:56 AM

^^I'd say that's a rather accurate summary.

2/24/2011 11:08:39 AM

Thanks Frog.

I guess when you hear about Rumsfeld being on the Daily Show you just expect some kind of drama or rumble for entertainment purposes, not really to learn anything or a different opinion. For better or worse, it is what it is.

2/24/2011 12:20:24 PM

Rumsfeld is transparent to anybody with a fucking clue

2/24/2011 1:03:25 PM

^ah yes. I do suppose the Secretary of Defense doesnt have any more info than the 20 something blogger with a laptop.

2/24/2011 1:33:11 PM

To give my armchair commentary now:

I think Rumsfeld played that interview very well and calculated. When Stewart wanted to make a point, he sat there quietly and waited for him to finish, and I think it hurt Stewart. He seemed preachy and didn't have any evidence of substance to back him up. It comes back to Rumsfeld and it was "yeah, we had to make hard decisions". He also did a fantastic job of playing off mistakes and coverups on the military. After all, he had to make no other point than, "we played the Iraq war on the best available evidence", and up until the extent that the entire military leadership is knocking down his door saying they didn't have enough troops, no one can fault the president for listening to advisor A versus B, even if A is a slimeball.

Don't get me wrong, there's a good chance Rumsfeld did things that would have me classify him as a war criminal. But he interviewed well.

It makes me reflect on the Bush administration. Look as far back as the Grant administration, and I think it's clear that criminally corrupt administrations... ultimately get away with it, and how could you not with that power behind you? The entire government complex is so vastly large and you never lack a bureaucratic channel to throw under the bus, and unlike CEOs you don't have an objective metric that you get fired over. To tell the truth, I think that at the presidency level, mediocrity and corruption go hand and hand. If you don't have a tight grip of what is being carried out under the name of the executive branch, then others will gladly be corrupt for you. Bush directly did some corrupt things (appointees!), but all his flaws are completely drowned out by the one overriding sin - He was a lousy president at exactly the right time.

2/24/2011 1:51:01 PM

While I don't watch the Daily Show for anything hard-hitting, it is disappointing that more often than not, when an object of TDS' jokes appears on the show, especially politicians, Stewart spends more time talking than listening. It's almost as if he's trying to pick apart the subject in order to gain more approval from his audience, rather than letting that person speak and defend their position as best as they can. I think he's a great guest on other shows, but only an average interviewer, at best.

2/24/2011 1:58:01 PM

Quote :

"^ah yes. I do suppose the Secretary of Defense doesnt have any more info than the 20 something blogger with a laptop."

ahahaha I remember seeing this exact same line back when people were skeptical of his claims of WMD's

2/24/2011 2:56:24 PM

Quote :

"ah yes. I do suppose the Secretary of Defense doesnt have any more info than the 20 something blogger with a laptop."

Ever had YOUR eyes checked?

Quote :

"Don't get me wrong, there's a good chance Rumsfeld did things that would have me classify him as a war criminal."

This either implies ignorance or insane standards.

[Edited on February 24, 2011 at 3:09 PM. Reason : .]

2/24/2011 3:08:35 PM

Quote :

"Don't get me wrong, there's a good chance Rumsfeld did things that would have me classify him as a war criminal. But he interviewed well."

I disagree.

Stewart accurately pointed out that they came off as very certain coming up to the Iraq war, but Rumsfeld never acknowledged this and really claimed the opposite. It seemed like he didn't care to admit he made a mistake.

2/24/2011 3:12:05 PM

^maybe he feels it was still the right call at the time.

2/24/2011 3:28:43 PM

Of course he feels it was the right call, but not for any of the motivations or intentions you pretend he has

[Edited on February 24, 2011 at 3:49 PM. Reason : conservative pretendo-psychology]

2/24/2011 3:49:20 PM

Rumsfeld should be in prison and so should Bush and Cheney.

2/24/2011 4:29:48 PM

So should Obama, then, for continuing wars that were illegal from the start. We had no right to go in, and we have no right to be there now.

[Edited on February 24, 2011 at 4:45 PM. Reason : Sorry, not we - them. We're the victims, not the beneficaries.]

2/24/2011 4:41:14 PM

Quote :

"Bush directly did some corrupt things (appointees!), but all his flaws are completely drowned out by the one overriding sin - He was a lousy president at exactly the right time"

Sorry, I read that and agreed up until I re-read and saw that you said "Bush" instead of "Obama."

Oh, and the reason why his flaws are drowned out. I misread "one overriding sin - He was a lousy president at exactly the right time" to think you said "media."

Also odd was how you capitalized "He" and not "president."

*shrugs

[Edited on February 24, 2011 at 7:27 PM. Reason : thought /= think]

2/24/2011 7:26:28 PM

This Austan Goolsbee guy seems like an idiot.

He strikes me as one of those people who gets by on enthusiasm rather than any kind of competence (how i always perceived a certain semi-circular-saw named poster).

[Edited on February 24, 2011 at 11:46 PM. Reason : ]

2/24/2011 11:44:51 PM

The vapidity of the "war criminal" charges in this thread probably explains why Stewart didn't even try to go that route. I mean, Rumsfeld on the Daily Show? Shouldn't this have been the Great Progressive Smackdown? It's almost as if Stewart forgot all of his MoveOn.org talking points and stuck instead to rather nuanced arguments about how things might have been done better (which many proponents of the war, such as myself, have been arguing all along). You know, the kind of criticism that can be substantiated.

2/24/2011 11:48:05 PM