Rumsfeld defends his remarks and blames the media for slanting them

feel the walls closing in, eh, don...? maybe something actually got under your incredibly thick skin...?

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld reached out to Democrats late Friday, opening up the door for them to retract their stinging indictment of him as Pentagon chief.

In a letter to Congress's top Democrats, Rumsfeld said recent remarks he made during a speech in Salt Lake City were misrepresented by the media, including by The Associated Press. Rumsfeld said he was “concerned” by the reaction of Democrats, many of whom called for his resignation and said he was treading on dangerous territory.

“I know you agree that with America under attack and U.S. troops in the field, our national debate on this should be constructive,” Rumsfeld wrote Friday.

During his speech before thousands of veterans Tuesday, Rumsfeld said the world faces “a new type of fascism” and warned against repeating the pre-World War II mistake of appeasement. He alluded to critics of the Bush administration's war policies in terms associated with the failure to stop Nazism in the 1930s, “a time when a certain amount of cynicism and moral confusion set in among the Western democracies.”

Without explicitly citing Bush critics at home or abroad, he said “it is apparent that many have still not learned history's lessons.” Aides to Rumsfeld said later he was not accusing the administration's critics of trying to appease the terrorists but was cautioning against a repeat of errors made in earlier eras.

“Thought and careful preparation went into what I said,” Rumsfeld wrote in the letter. “It is absolutely essential for us to look at lessons of history in this critical moment in the war on terror. I was honored by the reception my statements received from our veterans.”

Democrats said Friday they stood by their remarks.

don, you moss-backed dinosaur, you... it wasn't just the democrats that jumped all over your thoughtful and carefully prepared comments... not by a long shot... you stirred up a whole nest of outrage... and, lemme tell ya something... if the dems wuss out and retract THEIR comments, there's a lot of people who have no intentions of retracting THEIRS...

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