Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH): Don’t blame Rummy. It was the friggin’ soldiers who screwed up.
This afternoon on Blitzer’s Situation Room, Wolf reads John Boehner a list of Republicans criticizing or calling for the resignation of Don Rumsfeld. And Boehner responds …
BOEHNER: Wolf, I understand that, but let’s not blame what’s happening in Iraq on Rumsfeld.
BLITZER: But he’s in charge of the military.
BOEHNER: But the fact is, the generals on the ground are in charge, and he works closely with them and the president. We’ve seen this run up in violence as we get closer to the election, as we get closer to Ramadan, same thing we’ve seen over the last couple of years.
It’s bad enough Boehner wants to place blame on the soldiers in the field. But Boehner has a very short memory. Remember, the whole Rummy cult that held Washington in its thrall only a few years ago was based on the idea that he didn’t just take the stodgy generals’ word for it. Their ideas were outmoded. And the men were stuck in their ways. It took Rummy to knock their heads together and tell them what was what.
So really, Rumsfeld is probably a lot more responsible for this disaster than almost any other Sec Def has been for anything else, because he’s insisted on such a level of micromanagement and such a complete disregard for the professional advice of his generals.
But for John Boehner, don’t forget the central mission: defend Rummy and the president at all costs. Don’t cut and run.
Late Update: And now the video …
Rep. John Sweeney (R-NY) fights back against news reports he roughed up his wife who then called the police for help. He kinda sorta denies the events happened, 
but not really. You can see the details in this report. But the essence of it is that while he says that “the report is false … there was no domestic violence”, he doesn’t really say the events as reported didn’t take place.
This afternoon Sweeney spoke publicly, with his wife standing silently at his side: “I love my wife, I love my children, I love my family, and I will not allow them to be dragged in this just because my opponent has the thirst and desire to have power.”
Sweeney clearly wants to give the impression that the document which was the basis of reports in the Albany Times-Union and the New York Daily News — a page from a police blotter — was a fabrication, and that his Democratic opponent, Kirsten Gillibrand, is behind it.
But in a statement released earlier in the day by Sweeney’s wife it’s clear that something happened on the night in question. “The evening in question was a very difficult time for our family Real life has real problems. Like every family, we have personal challenges that we must overcome.”
The whole thing amounts to one really fraught non-denial denial. Did the events in question happen on that night? No comment. Did Mrs. Sweeney call 911? No comment. Was there a physical confrontation? No comment.
But the story that ran in the papers? Terrible, terrible totally false double not true stuff. A shameful report concocted by my opponent.
Shameless, I tell you!
Did I mention shameful?
This has to be one of the most pathetic things I’ve seen this election campaign, though it’s still got serious competition from this Colorado GOP House candidate who sent out a flyer begging forgiveness for demanding that Social Security be abolished when he was a (24 year old) ‘know-it-all-kid’.
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), one of the more bizarre and execrable specimens housed in the House GOP menagerie, is, you know, the subject of a very serious federal corruption and bribery investigation. And now he’s gone on the air with ad, the message of which appears to be: vote Weldon, because it’s really not clear yet that he’s a crook.
Here’s how the Philadelphia Inquirer describes the ad …
A Weldon spot addresses the federal probe without mentioning it directly, using the voices of ordinary voters. The commercial begins with a question – “Would you give a friend the benefit of a doubt?” – and concludes with the answer: “He’s been there for us. Now it’s our turn to be there for him.”
This must be a GOP version of the civic compact I’m not familiar with. Congressman represents constituents. In turn constituents stand by him when he’s investigated for taking bribes. I think Locke may say something like that. But it’s been a while since I studied that stuff in grad school. So I can’t remember.
Vote Weldon in his time of need! He’s been there for us. So shouldn’t we stick by him while he’s investigated for bribery and corruption?
That’s really got to get the volunteers juiced up to knock on doors.
Has anyone actually seen this ad? I’m dying to see it.
Charlottesville PD investigating the Allen campain’s assault on blogger Mike Stark. And Sen. Allen (R-VA) is among those the cops want to question.
Our pal Ruy Teixeira does an in-depth crunching of all the numbers and polls. Lotta good stuff. Check it out.
Cluck, cluck: If Republican lawmakers hadn’t broken quite so many laws, maybe they’d have a better shot at holding on to power. That and other news of the day in today’s Daily Muck.
Election watcher Larry Sabato’s predictions are in…
23-30 House and 5-6 Senate pickups for Dems — but more impressively, he thinks it’s possible that the GOP might not win a single House seat, Senate seat, or governorship from Dems this election. Details here.
Here’s that ad from Curt Weldon asking for “the benefit of the doubt.”