and influence people.
The Washington Post this morning has an interesting story about how Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had particularly rancorous meetings with both members of his own party and our party. He liberally attacked members on both sides of the aisle and in both houses of Congress.
Deep into the article is this choice comment:
When the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Ike Skelton (Mo.), asked about the number of insurgents in Iraq, the secretary said,
"I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my business to do intelligent work."
The reporter offers a snide parenthetical aside, "He presumably meant to say `intelligence.'"
The article reports many other witty responses to questions that members of Congress posed:
To a Republican who asked him about increases in soldiers' insurance costs, "I've never heard that number."
To a Democrat who asked about long-term Army expenses being included in an emergency spending package, Rumsfeld replied the matter "really is beyond my pay grade."
When another Democrat allowed that few things were beyond his pay grade, Rumsfeld responded: "Senator, I thought Congress was Article 1 of the Constitution."
To a Republican who dared to pepper him with a series of questions, Rumsfeld said, ""You had so many questions there. Now let me see if I can pull out another one."
The article is worth a gander. With a little more arrogance like this from the Administration, we may yet find a Congress with the cajones necessary to save the Republic.