LOL at Don Rumsfeld

Don Rumsfeld whined in a recent public speech that the U.S. military's PR machine somehow lags behind that of Al Qaeda, and blames this on Al Qaeda being capable of using modern technology.

According to a Reuters story posted on CNN.com:

The Pentagon chief said today's weapons of war included e-mail, Blackberries, instant messaging, digital cameras and Web logs, or blogs.

"Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but ... our country has not adapted," Rumsfeld said.

"For the most part, the U.S. government still functions as a 'five and dime' store in an eBay world," Rumsfeld said, referring to old-fashioned U.S. retail stores and the online auction house respectively.

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I don't know which is worse, Rumsfeld feeding people this line of bull or news services like Reuters eating it up.

It's kind of funny because I routinely exchange email with Pentagon spokespeople and get responses from their Blackberries. There have been stories written about the use of blogs by top Pentagon officials. How can Rumsfeld even begin to make these comparisons?

The Pentagon runs on an annual budget of more than $400 billion. I'm guessing that's a heck of a lot more than Al Qaeda. I'm also guessing the Pentagon has WAY more PR people than Al Qaeda, and pays them much better too (civilians in these positions typically make $50,000-$100,000+). These public affairs offices all have modern computers, their own websites, and plenty of resources.

If Rumsfeld thinks his public affairs people are all stupid (and in many cases he's right, trust me -- I deal with these people everyday), he should begin a massive purge and consider outsourcing most of this work to the private sector.

But the bigger picture is that he's making an excuse for why his war on terrorism is going so poorly and is only getting worse, given the new terrorist hot bed that he created in Iraq. We deserve better. Better excuses at least.