But I Thought It Was About Destroying Saddam Hussein's WMDs...

Rummy yesterday:

"Indeed, the most important reason for our involvement in Iraq -- despite the costs -- and they’re considerable -- is often overlooked. It is not only about building democracy, although democracies tend to be peaceful and prosperous and are in and of themselves good things to be sure. And it’s not only about reopening Iraqi schools, hospitals or rebuilding infrastructure, though they are proceeding apace and these things are desirable and ultimately essential to stability in that country.

But, simply put, defeating extremist aspirations in Iraq is essential to protecting the lives of the American people."

Rummy also tried to prove how well we're doing in Iraq by sort of quoting "a distinguished academician":

"I don’t have the exact quote so I won’t name him, (but he) said something to the effect that the situation in Iraq is terrible, and it’s never been better."

Go USA! Rah, Rah, Rah!

Stephen Pizzo at AlterNet has the only reasonable explanation for the lunacy that comes out of Rummy's mouth: He truly is mad, as in he's fucking MENTAL:

Don got so nutty during his weekly news conference last week that Joint Chiefs head, General Pace, had to reel him in; not once, but twice. The first time was when Pace used the accepted term, "insurgents," to describe the indigenous fighters in Iraq.

Rumsfeld interrupted, waving both hands over his head, to announce that over the weekend he had had an epiphany. We've been using the wrong term entirely to describe the Iraqis killing our troops over there, he pronounced from on high. They are not "insurgents," they are "Enemies of the Legally Elected Iraqi Government," or EOLEIGs. (Guess we know now why Donald never made it as a corporate jingle writer.)

Now ask yourself, what kind of person but a nut, would make such a pronouncement at a time when American kids are being blown up by the dozen each week? And to do so with such pompous grandiosity, on TV, and to cynical, hard-boiled reporters! Only a madman, a person so deeply confused in his own mind that he thinks his absurd ruling actually is contributing to a solution.