** disgust **

I simply cannot believe that with all the various roommates, cronies, relatives, business partners, and former Texans available to the White House that not one of them works in Public Relations, or that no one in the White House has thought to surgically attach a PR rep to Donald Rumsfield before permitting him within fifty feet of anyone even vaguely resembling a reporter.

Rumsfield on the Guantanamo Bay hunger strikes:

"Well, I suppose that what they're trying to do is to capture press attention, obviously, and they've succeeded.

"There are a number of people who go on a diet where they don't eat for a period and then go off of it at some point. And then they rotate and other people do that."

And on why the UN human rights investigators should not have access to actual detainees whose rights are being investigated:

"There's got to be a limit to how one does that.

"The ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross, a neutral body that keeps its findings confidential) has been doing it for a great many years and has had complete and total access ever since Guantanamo was opened. And so we're not inclined to add (to) the number of people that would be given that extensive access."

I have to wonder -- what exactly is he hiding in Guantanamo Bay?

And you should wonder, too, since he took care to cover his ass.

"It seems to me, looking at it from this distance, is that the responsible people are the combatant commanders. And the Army is the executive agent for detainees."

Unbelievable.

Remember, this is coming from a prominent member of an administration that is very proud of itself for bringing democracy and freedom to Iraq.

All quotes via Will Dunham for Reuters, via Yahoo! News