Congressman Kucinich Smacks Rummy

CNN is carrying a story about Fmr. Defense Sec. Donald Rumsfeld's testimony on Pat Tillman before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who is also seeking the Democratic nomination for President, and is chair of the committee really smacked Rummy around with his questions and comments. I love it!!

There were flare-ups of temper, as when Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, pressed Rumsfeld about whether he discussed press strategies with the White House.

"Was there a Department of Defense press strategy with respect to the war?" Kucinich asked.

"If there was, it obviously wasn't very good," Rumsfeld responded.

"Well you know, maybe it was very good, because you actually covered up the Tillman case for a while, you covered up the Jessica Lynch case, you covered up Abu Ghraib, so something was working for you -- was there a strategy to do it, Mr. Rumsfeld?" Kucinich persisted.

"Well, Congressman, the implication that -- you said 'you' covered it up, that's just false," Rumsfeld answered testily. "You have nothing to base that on, you have not a scrap of evidence."

I was a drug policy advisor to Congressman Kucinich's 2004 campaign for the democratic nomination for President. Got to meet and interview him on drug policy in Austin, TX. He is very pro-drug policy reform and ironically and fantastically enough he replaced Con. Mark Souder (who was an idiot and extreme pro-drug war)as chair of this particular committee, which oversees the budget of the ONDCP. Life doesn't get much better than that.