I Further Heart Fran Townsend

Outgoing national security advisor Fran Townsend is gone but can never be forgotten - here is a classic for the "Retreat, hell - we're just advancing in a different direction" file:

ED HENRY: You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we're going to get him. Still don't have him. I know you are saying there's successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That's a failure.

FRAN TOWNSEND: Well, I'm not sure -- it's a success that hasn't occurred yet. I don't know that I view that as a failure.

In the Bush Administration we have immediate successes and delayed successes!  Maybe Ms. Townsend can manage the Yankees next season so A-Rod and crew won't miss the World Series.

Ms. Townsend's departing letter includes this classic highlighted at Harpers by Scott Horton:

In 1937, the playwright Maxwell Anderson wrote of President George Washington: There are some men who lift the age they inhabit, til all men walk on higher ground in their lifetime.

Mr. President, you are such a man.

Pretty droll, telling the Pres that a person needed to be high to work for him.  But did she share?

 

Comments

[Jack is Back!]

You know she worked for Rudi when he was US Attorney in New York? Perhaps she will get another chance to resign but as AG the next time.

[TM]

I am pretty sure from her bio that we have some mutual friends, but I have not attempted to pin that down.

[hit and run]

TM:
In the Bush Administration we have immediate successes and delayed successes!

Well, Ms. Townsend may not be able to get a job under the Education Secretary in Britain.

But she would do well in the Professional Association of Teachers there.