Posted on 09/16/2008 6:26:34 AM PDT by forkinsocket
These days, political memoirs come in three genres.
First, the "everyone around me was an idiot or a crook, but I was a really smart good guy." Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's What Happened perfected the genre, assuring him the place in history previously occupied by Baron Munchausen.
The second borrows a line from the great Toby Keith, converting "I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then" from lyric to prose. Former CIA director George Tenet's At the Center of the Storm will, for many a year, be foremost in that category.
The last is one that can recount history over decades of public service. It tells the story of important events from the viewpoint of a key participant in well-documented terms, like Churchill's six-volume history of World War II.
In a small but elegant suite of offices near Farragut Square in downtown Washington, D.C., former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld is writing his entry in the third genre. Churchill once said, "History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it." Rumsfeld knows history will be more kind to him than the daily press was, and not only because he will write it.
History -- benefiting from the passage of time -- is not the stuff of daily news reporting, which is tinged with the emotions of the day and the biases of the reporters. Donald Rumsfeld -- once "Rumstud" to the adoring pressies -- fell into disfavor over the Iraq war. In his retirement, he must take comfort from his record of achievement, a record that guarantees history's verdict on him will be much kinder than the editorial page of the New York Times.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
"I am the worst failure since Simon Cameron and Robert McNamara!"
Rummy made some mistakes. But I hope he will name so names when dealing with his critics. Me thinks their are a few of them that do not want Rummy to write about them.
I like Rummy. I will never forget the line about fighting a war with the army you have.
I like Rummy. I will never forget the line about fighting a war with the army you have.
damn straight history will be kinder to Donald Rumsfeld!
What he accomplished far outshines his mistakes, plus, guess what? No one is perfect.
In fact, it can be argued that he was exactly the person needed running DOD for 2001-2004. From pulling everyone together after 9/11 to the invasion of Iraq. Hindsight is always 20/20, so it is all too easy for critics to rewrite the best answer for the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq. I challenge freepers to think of anyone who could have really done a better job than him for that time.
Rumsfeld was against nation building. He wanted to topple Saddam Hussein and get out of the country.
Dr. Robert Gates has done 10 times the job that Rumsfeld should have done and he did it in a lot less time. Rumsfeld will go down in history as a complete and utter failure. He was/is the historic epitome of Gen. George McClellan!
WOW! A few here seem to know all about Rummy! What he did ... what he didn’t do ... who and what he supportd .. when ..
I read about every transcript of every DoD briefing that man did. Rummy has nothing to fear from “History”. Iraq will play out exactly as he said it would in ‘05.
Say what you want about Rummy. The man is no liar and he is better at “seeing the Big Picture” than most. I look forward to his book.
Before comparing Rumsfeld to General McClelland, you need to brush up on your Civil War history. McClelland would not fight because he never had enough troops, in his mind.
Rumsfeld sent Tommy Franks into Iraq with a relatively small force (against the judgment of old line Generals) and defeated the Iraqi Army in about 2 weeks. Military historians will be praising that campaign long after we are dust.
Rummy won the war. The State Department (and some incompetent generalship after Franks left) almost lost the peace.
If he wrote that, he would be wrong. Just like you.
Thanks for the links.
The Lerner article is very much in line with my recall of events and thinking on the matter. I hope that some of the Rummy detractors read it.
What are you smoking? McClellan and Rumsfeld share one positive: They both built an army from a neglected (because of Pierce/Buchanan and Bush41/Clinton cuts of military infrastructure) hulk. Other than that, all are negative traits. Amb. Bremmer (whom the author of this gratuitous piece of garbage even admits was a Rumsfeld subordinate) was doing everything he could to twart the army's civil affairs branch while Rumsfeld was busy trying to circle the wagons in a strategy of limited warfare.
Meanwhile Al Qeida terrorists were pouring in through Iraq's porous borders and looting, crime, power outages, other infrastructure meltdowns went amok.
If President Bush had just one inkling of the smarts and balls that President Lincoln had, he would have fired Rumsfeld just as Lincoln fired Simon Cameron at the onset and gotten Dr. Gates in place just as Lincoln got Stanton. We'd have been done with Iraq by now; had a democratic ally in the Middle East and McCain/Palin would not be facing the possibility of losing to an anti-war idiot like Obama.
What are you smoking? McClellan and Rumsfeld share one positive: They both built an army from a neglected (because of Pierce/Buchanan and Bush41/Clinton cuts of military infrastructure) hulk. Other than that, all are negative traits. Amb. Bremmer (whom the author of this gratuitous piece of garbage even admits was a Rumsfeld subordinate) was doing everything he could to twart the army's civil affairs branch while Rumsfeld was busy trying to circle the wagons in a strategy of limited warfare.
Meanwhile Al Qeida terrorists were pouring in through Iraq's porous borders and looting, crime, power outages, other infrastructure meltdowns went amok.
If President Bush had just one inkling of the smarts and balls that President Lincoln had, he would have fired Rumsfeld just as Lincoln fired Simon Cameron at the onset and gotten Dr. Gates in place just as Lincoln got Stanton. We'd have been done with Iraq by now; had a democratic ally in the Middle East and McCain/Palin would not be facing the possibility of losing to an anti-war idiot like Obama.
If I still smoked, I would ask to sample what you are inhaling. It seems to have the properties of rewriting history.
You might benefit from reading the above link to the Barbara Lerner article. It is contemporaneous to what was happening as things started falling apart in Iraq.
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