riffing off big dan's big news for tomorrow

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...which I propose you consult because he has there the video of Rummy and Company bumbling over the unaccountably lost by the Pentagon trillions and certain other 9/11-related questions from the sterling Cynthia McKinney, I bring you the full audio of his little luncheon talk with military analysts mentioned therein. It's about an hour and an 80MB download.

It's the famous one from late 2006 where he lets fly with the notion of another 9/11 getting us all back onboard... and I think you can hear Colin Powell talking quite a bit too.

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After listening fairly carefully to the whole thing, I tend not to agree with a lot of the stuff in the RAW STORY piece that started us on this topic. It isn't a speech. It's a luncheon, wherein Rummy's holding forth on the general state of things in Iraq. It's a conversation, with Rummy doing much of the talking, just being his cavalier self, cheerfully authoritarian as ever, notwithstanding having to have given his resignation and Gates moving into the job. Maybe I have to listen again when I'm fresher, but it only seemed to me he was expressing frustration that we weren't scared enough of the terrorist threat to go along with the administration's efforts to save us from it, and only would be again if there were another attack. He was lamenting their being victims of their success at keeping us safe... being colorful in the highly-polished cover for whatever their true intent or mission is. Old news, and it's already been drilled into us repeatedly through PBS. It was probably more than half of Frontline's reason to continue existing over the last year. Not only is it a highly-polished front, but it is believed, swallowed, by most of the people engaged in it. I'm not suggesting Rummy is innocent of it, but he was pitch perfect in conveying it to the minions here. I think it's a waste of time to call this fodder for conspiracy theorists. It's a good use of time if you think of it as fodder for understanding the enemy.
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[Well, and anyone who hasn't done so already can stop by Alan's and let Mark Crispin Miller prepare you for November. Also, you should hit the gym to be fit by then....]