Donald Rumsfeld Loudly Harangued At White House Correspondents' Dinner (VIDEO)

This video has been making the rounds, but in case you haven't seen it, here's Donald Rumsfeld getting shouted at by Desiree Fairooz and Medea Benjamin of the ubiquitous protest organization known as Code Pink. I gather that the big takeaway is that, in Code Pink's estimation, Donald Rumsfeld is a "war criminal." But don't take my word for it! Maybe my impression is based in a flawed parsing of all this subtlety.

[WATCH.]

Naturally, I'm not a big fan of Donald Rumsfeld, or the Iraq War strategy, or the foreign policy -- if it can be called that -- that came out of the Bush White House. And, on principle, I'm sort of okay with messing around with the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Nevertheless, I find it hard to divine the value of Code Pink yelling at Rumsfeld in this setting. In the first place, there's the pointlessness: the Beltway press are fully on board with "looking forward, not backward," and preserving comity, and not troubling their pretty little minds with the hurtful thoughts of the people they cover going to jail. And I promise you, this yelling at Donald Rumsfeld will only harden their position in this regard. But more to the point, I've watched Code Pink shout at Al Gore, of all people, at Netroots Nation, of all places, as he was explaining his national environmental policy initiative, of all the things to shout down. When you basically go out and disrupt EVERYTHING, it's hard to know where you stand on ANYTHING.

So, yeah, I find this stuff relentlessly unimpressive, but I've also found that plenty of people object to me saying so. Just like the Tea Parties! I nevertheless believe that just as crisis demands we not abandon our principles, our response to crisis demands we at least attempt to preserve a measure of dignity. And with that, everyone can start, you know, TOTALLY YELLING AT ME.

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Comments

[rabiddog6708]

Rummy can never be harangued loud enough or too often.

[K.J. Dwyer - Huffpost Blogger]

Part II

Why is Code Pink's response considered so over-the-top? Is it not that the rest of us are too lazy or scared to confront how deeply corrupt is and has been the American government? That once we start down the road of discovery, the underlying truth of the United States' horrendous record of abuse (not just over the last six years in Iraq but internationally over the last 100 years) will be so overwhelming that we won't know how to go forward? No, much easier to write off Desiree Fairooz and Medea Benjamin as nutty throwbacks and talk about how they're hurting progressives.

Where is our anger? Where is our rage? I suspect it's buried in some deep recess of fear, denial and a half-baked fantasy that with our newfound committment to "change" we can somehow quietly put all of this behind us.

Until the next atrocity.

[twintwine]

Unfortunately most of the American public, even those who vehemently oppose Bush, has been complicit in the corruption. What has become normative behavior is hinged on schadenfreude, marginalization, intolerance, hatred, and denial. America's central desire is to pass our pain away from us, and we end up causing a great deal of unneeded suffering in this country and around the world. Its pop-culture is centralized on this.

The American public mirrored it's leaders, often not in word but in deed, for their own psychosocial benefit.

War criminals. If it's true, then the American public is complicit.

[graphicnovel]

I think you are being too punitive. Americans try to make things right the best we can. Nothing will ever be good enough for some. America will always be corrupt, immoral and dishonest to you punishers. No matter how many people we free, no matter how many billions of dollars we give away. America will never get it right in your eyes.

[K.J. Dwyer - Huffpost Blogger]

Read Stephen Kinzer's "Overthrow"

http://www.democracynow.org/2006/4/21/overthrow_americas_century_of_regime_change

and then tell me how "Americans try to make things right the best we can."

If you possess a modicum of intelligence, you will cringe at what you've just written.

[davidhilton1]

thats just 2 ppl screaming that...could u imagine if 10's of thousands of ppl were to scream that to him?
i would participate in that protest...

[powerlift2201]

I see nothing wrong with Cod Pink harrassing Donald Rumsfeld. He is one of the primary reasons we went to war in Iraq with far too few soldiers, which then caused the power vacuum, whic then caused the civil war. He is personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of US soldiers and thousands of Iraqi civlians. He deserves every second of these women making him a little embarrassed or uncomfortable. Of course I think that he should be forced to go to Iraq and stand guard over something extremely valuable with nothing more than a BB gun a sign on his chest reading, "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want"

[AuntiepoppyCock]

I bet it turned him on. He puffed his chest out and didn't blink...

I bet the protestor didn't expect to run into him without her handcuffs.

[petef59]

Code Pink women are the only citizens with balls? Brass at that.

[Burner]

Rumsfeld needs to be shamed. I am actually a bit surprised that he feels comfortable enuf to show his face at a gig like the WHCD. Shouldn't he have crawled in a hole a few years ago?

[LeeCalif]

Why did the war criminal rumsfeld show up there ??

[YouDisgustMe]

i *heart* code pink in all their batshlt crazlness. rock on!

[Rickfors]

Truth is beauty, and beauty is truth.

[Deidroni]

The only thing Desiree was missing was the red hands she had used to embarrass Condoleeza Rice.

Code Pink members are brave Americans to stand up to government officials and call them out for their criminal activity.

Had they been polite it would have never made it on to the internet. Their activity never makes into the mainstream media. Unfortunately they're relegated to the background of C-span hearings.

[Ergon]

If they yelled at Al Gore, he deserved it; his shilling for ethanol as a gasoline substitute caused a global food crisis as large agriprocessors used up good agricultural land to produce ethanol instead of food crops.
I wouldn't call Code Pink "liberals" either. They're great radical activists, in the mode of Emma Goldman.

[solarian]

better than being a republican shill if shoe fites were it

[Yermammy]

Yep. I disagree. Being polite didn't stop Viet Nam. I wear the scars to prove it.

[KodeBloo]

These girls make me proud to be an American.

[Yermammy]

That WAS courage. I am proud of Americans such as these women. They double teamed his @ss. That kind of bravery stops evil, make no mistake. I am inspired.

[capeman2]

hahahaha, that's a riot!

[KodeBloo]

Yep. They are heroes. You are a t.raitor.

[Wiseronenow]

Rumy, crawled out of his bunker, eh? What he got from Code Pink pales in comparison to torture, period.

[dphilip]

Thank you Code Pink ladies, You are showing the world what kind of people democrats are in their hearts and the way we think and act. good job.

[disgusted48]

that's right, excellent job. everything they said was true. somebody has to tell the truth. thousands dead based on a lie. every moral American should be outraged by the atrocities that were done in our name.