Jim Lehrer Meets His Match

An amusing exchange between Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Jim Lehrer in an interview Thursday, December 8th.  Jim Lehrer from the News Hour was in attack mode.  Rumsfeld stayed calm and handled the attacks well.

"JIM LEHRER: Does it bother you -- I looked at the public opinion polls the last, recent ones that mention you. And you don't come out very well in terms of the public. I couldn't find one where the public had approved of the job you were doing, less than 50 percent. Does that bother you?

DONALD RUMSFELD: Well, you know, you'd love to have acclamation and unanimity in everything one does. But in this position, in a war, and wars are tough. Someone told me the other day that Clemenceau made the comment that wars are a series of catastrophes culminating in victory. And they're tough. And so it doesn't surprise me that there are feelings, the feelings are strong on both sides.

There are an awful lot of people that are very positive and very favorable and very helpful and constructive. But there are certainly people who disagree violently; and that is the nature of a free system. So that's fair. I can live with that.

JIM LEHRER: You made a speech earlier this week where you said the news media should reassess the way it covers Iraq. What do you mean?

DONALD RUMSFELD: Oh, I think that it's -- if you look where the news media is, it's down very low at the polls. If you want to get into public opinion polls, people in that business are right down near the bottom.

JIM LEHRER: Tell me about it.

DONALD RUMSFELD: You know that. Yeah, does it bother you?

JIM LEHRER: (laughter) Hey, I ask the questions here!"

More of the interview, along with some commentary, at the Gateway Pundit.

This remark from Don Rumsfeld deserves special mention:

". . . .Clemenceau made the comment that wars are a series of catastrophes culminating in victory.  And they're tough.  And so it doesn't surprise me that there are feelings, the feelings are strong on both sides."

Wars are tough.  A lot is at stake.  We are dealing with more than the Iraq war right now, and more than Iraq is at stake.  Iraq is not a war; it is only one theater in which the war is being fought.  This war is the war on terrorism, and it is a war that terrorists began long before September 11th.

Comments

[AcademicElephant]

You're right--wars are tough and we're lucky to have a tough SecDef to fight them.