The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is Palm Beach Post Columnist Dan Moffett. Mr. Moffett gets the award for his Sunday column in which he wrote

On taking office in 2001, President Bush named the erudite Mr. Lindsey to be his chief economic adviser as director of the National Economic Council and assigned him the task of developing the administration’s tax-cut plan — which was pretty much already developed, since Mr. Lindsey also had been candidate Bush’s chief economic adviser.

What had been a cozy relationship abruptly turned marble cold on Dec. 6, 2002, when Mr. Lindsey resigned, along with Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill. The president released a statement written from a computer template that praised Mr. Lindsey as “highly talented and dedicated,” and Mr. Lindsey released a soppy letter praising President Bush but allowing that the time had come to “devote myself to other pursuits.”

Assorted leaks from assorted sources attributed Mr. Lindsey’s tough-love firing to his lack of managerial skills or his inability to communicate a coherent message of something called “the president’s economic vision” to Congress.

But in reality, we now know that Mr. Lindsey had been Shinsekied.

The infinitive verb — to Shinseki — owes its origins to Gen. Eric Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff who lost his job because he told Congress the truth about how many troops would be needed to occupy Iraq. He put the number at “several hundred thousand;” the White House disagreed by more than half.

Gen. Shinseki became Mr. Shinseki in a matter of weeks. But his name lives on. Wherever honest and courageous public servants are punished for being right, Gen. Shinseki’s memory will be invoked.

I do alot of reading. From both sides liberal and conservative. The New Republic, the most prominent liberal opinion journal in the country. I even subscribe to the New York Times and read Paul O'Nell's tenure at the Treasurey Department.

Never have I heard of the term Shinsekied. The reason? It don't exist.

General Shinseki did make comments in disagreement with the Bush administration BUT he wasn't forced out. He was Army Chief of Staff for four years, June 1999 to June 2003. That is the length of the term for a COS. If you don't believe me, read this.

United State Code
TITLE 10 - ARMED FORCES
Subtitle B - Army
PART I - ORGANIZATION
CHAPTER 305 - THE ARMY STAFF
Sec. 3033. Chief of Staff

(a)(1) There is a Chief of Staff of the Army, appointed for a
period of four years by the President, by and with the advice and
consent of the Senate, from the general officers of the Army. He
serves at the pleasure of the President. In time of war or during a
national emergency declared by Congress, he may be reappointed for
a term of not more than four years.

Shinseki wasn't fired. Yes he made comments before Congress, four months before his retirement. Therefore half of Moffett's column is garbage. If you want irony, read this from near the end of Mr. Moffett's column.

How incompetent does a government have to be to miscalculate by, oh, a half-trillion dollars or so?

As arrogant or incompetent as a newspaper columnist who failed to do a google search to check his facts. Either out of laziness or thinking no one would check the facts. Dan, have you ever heard of Dan Rather and a National Guard memo.

Maybe we could say Moffett has been Dan Rathered.

For journalistic incompetence if not outright lying in his Sunday column, Palm Beach Post columnist Dan Moffett is today's Knucklehead of the day.

Note- If the Post doesn't do a correction for this like they did with a Tom Blackburn column in August 2005, Post editorial page editor Randy Schultz will get a knucklehead award too. Stay tuned.

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