CNN Paints Outgoing Rumsfeld As "Victim"

Kevin Drum notes something I happened to catch today which has had me livid ever since: namely, CNN's military analyst Don Shepherd actually stated that outgoing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is a victim.

No, you aren't reading this wrong. No, I did not mistype.

Shepherd said various things in waxing nostalgic on Rumsfeld's six years as Warmongerer in chief, but the most ridiculous of them was that Rumsfeld - the man who took us into Afghanistan to catch Osama bin Laden and did not, the man who took us into Iraq for a war that would pay for itself, would have us in and out in a matter of weeks - "is a victim of the way the war is going."

Can you imagine?

How mean it was for Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis to attack us and force us into war so that poor Mr. Rumsfeld could take the blame! Oh wait. They didn't attack us. We have long ago learned they were in no position to do so.

So how the fuck does CNN figure Rumsfeld is a victim of this war?

CNN has been doing much of this lately, from its "majestic" coverage of the ceremony for Rumsfeld's exit today that some have dubbed "like a coronation" while Dana Milbank called it "more like a state funeral" to Wolf Blitzer waxing on and on about whether history will be kind to "poor misunderstood" President Bush, as if history had no right but to be anything but kind to him.