In contrast to the sunny assessment of Iraq Rumsfeld offered today, Zalmay Khalilzad -- he works for the president, not for the press -- tells the Los Angeles Times that Iraq is "really vulnerable" to civil war if there is another attack like last month's bombing of the Askiriya shrine in Samarra.

Didn't you know that Al-Qaida arranged for the Times to publish this, and if they didn't, it would never have been published? It's all part of the same pattern...

Idiocy, thy name is Rumsfeld...

Of course all of the exaggerations of the death toll have been on one side. If it was really 400 and the media said 50, that wouldn't be an exaggeration.

I've worked with too many corporations who spent all of their time and resources trying to control and spin bad news instead of actually trying to improve the situation, and I've never seen it work in the long term. Is it too much to ask that Rumsfeld and Rice get off the Sunday talk circuit, quit telling us how great things are going, and actually get back to doing their jobs?

In other words, according to Rummy, Al Qaeda is much more adept at putting their message across, including to US media, than all the resources of the US government! Not bad for Al Qaeda! But for us it is just another good reason we have to be disatisfied with the effectiveness and efficiency of our government...But I guess, Rummy would not see it that way?

Is it too much to ask that Rumsfeld and Rice get off the Sunday talk circuit, quit telling us how great things are going, and actually get back to doing their jobs?

Given how "great" a job both Rumsfeld and Rice have done when they've been on the job, do we want them back at their desks?

Oh say can you see by the liars own eyes...

Dear dear Donald. Time for you to take your medication and go back to your ward.

Are you sure Al Queda didn't get Rumsfeld to say that so we'd think that they are badder than we think they are so we could be more scared of them?!

"We do know, of course, that al-Qaida has media committees. We do know that they teach people exactly how to try to manipulate the media. They do this regularly..."

Don't listen to their propoganda, listen to ours. Oh, by the way, anything we disagree with is "their" propoganda.

What amazes me is that Rumsfels thinks this "media manipulation" by al-Qaeda (whether real or imagined) to be somehow original and unique. How about the Lincoln Group, which we KNOW plants fake "news" into Iraqi newspapers and gets paid for it by the U.S. military? Even I, a relatively uninformed citizen, can tie a string to those "all's well" pep-talks and trace them back to the U.S. government, which is a whole lot more than the Secretary of Defense can do with his bold assertions. (Given the debacle with the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam supposedly had, I doubt whether Rumsfeld can tie a shoelace to his arse and trace it to his boot.)

I wonder if those boo-tactics work anymore. Rumsfeld's been yelling wolf for so long that should the terrorists break into his house and set it on fire, the police would not bother responding to his 911 call.

Is Donald Rumsfeld moonlighting as a Daily Show comedy writer?

They roll this guy out every time the poll numbers are down to make some asinine assertion, and then, like Punxatawney Phil, he shuffles back into his spider hole at the Pentagon.

Gee, the Bush administration wouldn't know a thing about planting stories in the U.S. media about the war, education, or Joe Wilson's wife, would they?

We should ask Judy Miller, Armstrong Williams, and Scooter.

Now that we've acheived regime change in Iraq, I wonder what excuse Rumsfeld would use to deflect the obvious questions: Where exactly did you think those weapons would be? Which buildings? Buried under which lake? And what proof did you have that they would be there to allow you to speak categorically? What message do we send our troops by sweeping aside "inconsistencies" surrounding Rumsfeld's and others' selling of this war- a sales pitch bought by patriotic sons and daughters at recruiting stations around the country.

Poor Rummy. Let's see - is our media reporting slanted?

Weigh on the left hand, several hundred or more Iraqi's killed along with several Americans. Weigh on the other hand a school got a box of pencils today (while our rebuilding efforts resulted in a promise that someday people in the cities will actually have plumbing, clean water and electricity.) Hmmm. Lots of dead on one side. Pencils in school on the other side. Weigh, weigh, weigh. I'm working on some meaningful way that we can balance those scales.

I'VE GOT IT! Let's spend a bunch of money and plant Pentagon stories in the press. We'll also prohibit the media from seeing the plane loads of American bodies being returned in caskets from Iraq; that'll help keep from letting Osama slant us against the war and give Americans an honest view that all is rosy in fantasyland.

Way to go, Rummy, I knew we could count on you, you jerk!

Speaking of Osama, Rummy, why did your Generals make the British let Osama go in 2001 when they had him cornered in a valley because they wanted American troops to be the ones to get him, as a result of which he got away and still haunts us today?

Jim Conrad

Charlotte, NC

In the Red Scare days of the 50s and 60s, the McCarthyites and other reactionaries painted everything they didn't like political and cultural, Rock & Roll, Blacks, movies, sex, and certainly any criticism of the American Way, no matter how legitimate, as a communist plot. Conspiracies were everywhere. Only believe what they government tells you and approves of, etc. Dissent is treason, aiding the enemy. This is just more of the same bullshit.

Is Field Marshal Von Rumsfeld suggesting that all the moeny we've spent in planting propaganda in the Iraqi media, and in ours, has been trumped by an invisible organization that is more fantasy than reality? That's quite an admission. But never mind. Everyone: Just be afraid, very afraid, of what you read and hear. They are everywhere, just lurking to get us.

I think I'll sleep under my bed from now on.