Judge not on today, but on history

If you follow the alternative media (which you may if you ended up here), you will start to see stories like this about Donald Rumsfeld (Exit Rumsfeld, Smiling). You won't be surprised to see such stories because in this media you will find those who look beyond tomorrow and yesterday. Those that get their news (like it or not) from the mainstream media won't appreciate such broad sweeping analysis - they won't remember when their source for the "truth" was wrong because they were rushing to judgment for a story and a rating.

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... accomplishments ranging from bringing ballistic missile defense from theory to reality to transformation of the military from a Cold War garrison force to the flexible forces needed to fight the war we're in. Add to that the rapid overthrow of the Taliban and Saddam regimes, positioning America to deal with the rise of China, subtract Bush's unwillingness to take the battle to the enemy's centers of gravity, and Rumsfeld's record will be seen as imperfect, but one that may prove him to have been our best Secretary of Defense. ...

After 9-11, the president wanted to hit the Taliban hard, fast and decisively. But Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki insisted that almost the entire army had to be deployed to do it, and that would take several months. Rumsfeld and the other military leaders crafted a plan to take us to war - and to victory -- in weeks. America attacked the Taliban in early October 2001 and the Shinseki army - except for Army Special Forces and helo forces -- stayed home. By December the regime was toppled. Then began the media's contrivance of stories - possibly in collusion with congressional Democrats - about Rumsfeld's supposed failures that have led to everything from Usama bin Laden's escape to the mess in Mesopotamia.

The media suffered a panic attack at the beginning of the Afghan and Iraq wars. When our forces paused in the advance toward Baghdad, the media panicked. Reports said we're pausing, so we must be in trouble, we're running out of ammo, food and even water. There aren't enough troops. The war plan was wrong, and we have to stop, we're in Vietnam, another quagmire. The media were proven so wrong so quickly and so decisively that even they were embarrassed and they've never forgiven Rumsfeld for it. Their revenge is in the contrivance of fables about him.