Shooting the messenger.

One of the Bushbots' favorite devices for dealing with critics of the Bush Administration is the good old fashioned ad hominem attack. Paul O'Neill? Disgruntled because he was fired. Joe Wilson? Lifelong partisan Democrat. The generals criticizing Rummy? Closet liberals, selling a book or running for office.

The great thing about this, for the Bushbots, is that they can ignore the critics' allegations or arguments completely, and simply attack the messenger by questioning their motives or credibility.

Kinda like this.

GATEWAY PUNDIT LOOKS INTO THE BACKGROUND of a Rumsfeld heckler. This reminds me of Matt Welch's old project of googling antiwar people to discover how many (quite a few) had been apologists for Slobodan Milosevic's genocidal efforts. Why don't the Big Media do this kind of thing?

Gee, I don't know, maybe becacuse "Big Media" is more interested in Rumsfeld's exposed duplicity than they are about digging up dirt on the "heckler" (funny how asking the Sec. of Defense pointed questions is tantamount to "heckling")?

Here's the "heckling" Putz ignored, on his way to shooting the messenger:

QUESTION: So I would like to ask you to be up front with the American people, why did you lie to get us into a war that was not necessary, that has caused these kinds of casualties? why?

RUMSFELD: Well, first of all, I haven’t lied. I did not lie then. Colin Powell didn’t lie. He spent weeks and weeks with the Central Intelligence Agency people and prepared a presentation that I know he believed was accurate, and he presented that to the United Nations. the president spent weeks and weeks with the central intelligence people and he went to the american people and made a presentation. i’m not in the intelligence business. they gave the world their honest opinion. it appears that there were not weapons of mass destruction there.

QUESTION: You said you knew where they were.

RUMSFELD: I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were and –

QUESTION: You said you knew where they were Tikrit, Baghdad, northeast, south, west of there. Those are your words.

RUMSFELD: My words — my words were that — no, no, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let him stay one second. Just a second.

QUESTION: This is America.

RUMSFELD: You’re getting plenty of play, sir.

QUESTION: I’d just like an honest answer.

RUMSFELD: I’m giving it to you.

QUESTION: Well we’re talking about lies and your allegation there was bulletproof evidence of ties between al Qaeda and Iraq.

RUMSFELD: Zarqawi was in Baghdad during the prewar period. That is a fact.

QUESTION: Zarqawi? He was in the north of Iraq in a place where Saddam Hussein had no rule. That’s also…

RUMSFELD: He was also in Baghdad.

QUESTION: Yes, when he needed to go to the hospital. Come on, these people aren’t idiots. They know the story.

For the record, Rummy said this on ABC's "This Week" in March, 2003.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And is it curious to you that given how much control U.S. and coalition forces now have in the country, they haven’t found any weapons of mass destruction?

SEC. RUMSFELD: …We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

Now, I think Ray McGovern, the former CIA intelligence officer who grilled Rummy, did himself a disservice by begining his questions with, "Why did you lie..." He should've merely asked Rummy the next two questions and let his answers speak for themselves.

Putz and the other Bushbots let Rummy off the hook for his grossly inaccurate and misleading pre-war statements on WMD and al-Qaeda -- and these pathetic denials -- and then accuse "Big Media" of shirking their responsibility.

Incredible.