Rumsfeld was sitting in the front row as Parton sang her hit “Coat of Many Colors” before he was introduced.
The audience applauded as Rumsfeld appeared and thanked the troops serving in the military.
As people entered the auditorium for Saturday’s show they were given postcards with “America supports you,” printed on them.
Audience members waved the cards and shouted their support to the troops watching on television.
In contrast, a human rights group is accusing Rumsfeld of not supporting the troops, but rather shifting blame for prison abuse down the ladder.
Human Rights Watch called for a criminal investigation of Rumsfeld, former CIA Director George Tenet and other U.S. intelligence and military officials who it says condoned or ignored the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and other locations.
The report, to be released Sunday, takes no stance on the ultimate culpability of the officials but says an investigation is warranted by growing evidence against them.
It criticizes Rumsfeld and Tenet for trying to pass blame for the abuse to military subordinates and individual soldiers.
“This pattern of abuse across several countries did not result from the acts of individual soldiers who broke the rules,” Reed Brody, special counsel for the group, said in a statement. “It resulted from decisions made by senior U.S. officials to bend, ignore, or cast rules aside.”
CBS/AP
You can see the Human Rights Watch report here.
Good for Dolly. Maybe “Coat of Many Colors” will convert Cheyney to a more caring response to Social Security.
(For those who don’t know the song, let me, a Brit, explain that it is autobiographical about the time that her family was so poor that her mother had to make Dolly a coat from a mixture of fabrics that caused derision when she wore it to school)
Ah well, I suppose Dolly is now a solid Republican. It will be Dylan next.
As for passing the buck downwards for the prisoner abuse, yesterday there was an irony in the juxtaposition of this story in the NYT of the whitewash of the senior officers and that of the lead story of the demand for the death sentence of the 9/11 terrorist.
You and I may not see any moral equivalency, but sure as hell someone out there will.
for the info on the song.
Did you find it odd that justice came down for ZM and RR on the same day?
P.S. do you misspell Cheney on purpose? Like the way H.W. Bush used to mispronounce Sad-damn?
For some reason I always misspell Cheney wrongly. It may be Freudian or some other deep underlying psychotic trauma.
But I think it is because I don’t like him.
…but a lesbian Republican, a breed that I cannot for the life of me drum up even half a gram’s worth of respect.
He’s too afraid to go to Iraq and greet the troops. It’s crazy over there!
well, Dolly is not known for her brain.
hmmmmmmmm, I see in the pic, two people with false “fronts”…both claim they are real..hmmmm, eenie, meenie, …… ; )