Rummy's numbers on NPR match Dean's on MTP

[Rose Siding]

This morning Rumsfeld discussed troop numbers, as Dean did on MTP. Funny; the Secretary of Defense backs up Dean's answers.


How many total US troops?

Dean: "Between 1 and 2 million".
actually: 1.4 million.
Rummy: in excess of 1 million.

How many US troops in Iraq?

Dean: 135,000
"correct answer": 146,000
Rummy: 130,000

Dean spoke on June 22, so there would be some variation, right?

Rumsfeld makes these statements on the audio link here (the answer involved starts about 7 min in)

http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_1400932.html

Dean took a lot of heat to have given such accurate estimates, as is pointed out in Conniff's "Ganging up on Dean"

http://www.progressive.org/sept03/rc0903.html

[tjdee]

1. But Dean said he didn't have to know.

This is such a minor issue.

But the issue wasn't that Dean was wrong, but that he cradled his numbers inside a "I don't know, I don't have to know that" way. It made him 'appear' to be wrong, or uninformed--even if he wasn't.

[Rose Siding]

3. Right. He knew stuff he didn't even think he needed to know!

And he didn't play Russert's game of Quiz The Candidate. I liked that as did many others considering how contributions and suppport springboarded after that appearance.

I don't think raw treatment by the press is a "minor issue".

Even though Milbank wrote of Bush's ineptitude in todays WP, just last week he did 9 graphs for an article that could have been titled "Democratic Candidated Eats Sandwich Funny".

[stickdog]

4. Did you fall out of your chair tomake that reach? (NT)

[Cha]

2. Dean may have "taken a lot of heat" from certain factors.

But I have heard of so many People who checked out Dean further and signed on for Dean because of the mtp appearance that it seemed to do more Good than harm!

Transparent russert has had that effect before when he starts attacking dems for the sake of attacking dems.