Man of the Year: No flash, all substance (Donald Rumsfeld)

IT HAPPENED while we were watching Donald Rumsfeld address the NATO ministers in Brussels in his no-nonsense way, much the way he's conducted this war against terrorism. No drums, no bugles. No medals on his chest or Churchillian phrases, and not an ounce of charisma. Donald Rumsfeld could be president of the Dull Men's Club. Here was a man just getting business done. And we thought, not for the first time, this is just where he needs to be, and thank goodness he's there.

George W. Bush did a good term's work when he chose Don Rumsfeld as his secretary of defense. The man talks to NATO's ministers the same way he's talked to the press almost daily: without folderol. After so many years of glitz and spin, his anti-charisma has a certain, well, charisma.

By contrast, the same day's Wall Street Journal included a rundown of the press' coverage of the war in Afghanistan back when it was clear that what Donald Rumsfeld proposed to do couldn't be done. For example:

"This is a war in trouble," intoned Daniel Schorr of National Public Radio early on. No less than the distinguished R.W. Apple Jr. of the unembarrassable New York Times was comparing Afghan-istan to, of course, Vietnam. Quagmire! To sum up Johnny Apple's analysis and warning at the end of October: "Signs of progress are sparse."

Even by mid-November, when the Taliban were about to fall apart, Jacob Heilbrun of the Los Angeles Times was depicting the enemy as unbeatable. "There does not appear to be a political force capable of replacing the Taliban," he wrote the week before the tide turned and Mazar-e-Sharif fell to the advancing Northern Alliance.

Nothing that American forces were accomplishing in Afghanistan could change the script our seers had adopted from the first. "The United States is not headed into a quagmire;" wrote the aforesaid Mr. Heilbrun, "it already is in one." He was not about to be dissuaded by mere fact.

Maureen Dowd, that other keen military analyst, explained the history and geopolitics of it in her always snappy way: "Now, like the British and Russians before him, [George W. Bush] is facing the most brutish, corrupt, wily and patient warriors in the world...."

This is the kind of insight that validates Ms. Dowd's standing as one of the country's snappier observers of fashion and celebrity. She really shouldn't be wasting all that talent on politics, history, military affairs and other such ephemera. Not when the glib spirit of the Nineties waits to be revived at her mere touch.

Nicholas von Hoffman, who's still good for a hearty laugh after all these years, explained how lost and woebegone our forces were: "We are mapless, we are lost, and we are distracted by gusts of wishful thinking.... Moreover, as hellish as the Taliban are, it appears that the ordinary people of Afghanistan prefer them to the brigands and bandits with whom we've been trying to make common cause." That sage counsel appeared the week Kabul fell and its people were shown celebrating--getting a good shave, going to the movies again, sending the girls to school, listening to music for entertainment rather than catching the public executions and mutilations the Taliban were using the arena for....

But air power wouldn't work, we were repeatedly told by the estimable Charles Krauthammer and the boys at the Weekly Standard. Even as air power was working.

The Northern Alliance would not be able to overcome resistance in the South, magazines from Newsweek to The New Republic warned--just as the Alliance was achieving its breakthrough and about to break out, link up with allies, and overrun the whole country. ("Of all the proxies the United States has enlisted over the past half-century, the Northern Alliance may be the least prepared to attain America's battlefield objectives."--The New Republic, November 19, 2001.)

It was explained that nothing but a massive commitment of ground troops would do to take Kabul. But by the time our copy of The New Republic had arrived, Kabul had fallen.

But the Muslim world would rise as one against the United States, we were told. So warned The Nation's utterly consistent Katie Pollitt. (She never misses a wrong note.) What would be the consequences of the American war effort?

she asked, and answered her own question by dangling an assortment of fearful possibilities: "Thousands of new Taliban fans and recruits for anti-American suicide missions? A protracted war with a determined, hardy foe that draws in Central Asia, enrages the Muslim masses and destabilizes Pakistan or Indonesia or another country to be named later?"

Katie Pollitt couldn't conceive of the quieting effect American victory would have on the fabled Arab Street because she couldn't conceive of American victory.

There are a lot more delicious quotes in Matthew Ross' roundup of the usual suspects in the Journal, and we recommend clipping, saving and reading it the next time faint-hearted experts are predicting doom. On days when we're really down, we still derive comfort from reviewing Dale Bumpers' gloomy speeches preparatory to the Gulf War in 1991. (A vivid stump speaker, the senator was given to invoking the flood of body bags sure to come.)

OUR CURRENT secretary of defense must not have kept up with NPR, the New York Times, and all the magazines. Maybe because he was busy winning a war, along with a lot of other folks too unsophisticated to realize it couldn't be won.

Mr. Rumsfeld is already looking ahead. He knows the war against terrorism has only begun. That's why he was in Brussels--to talk about the shape of NATO, and why it shouldn't be diluting its strength on a hundred different peacekeeping missions around the world when it needs to be ready for war-winning duties.

Policing places like the Balkans is useful work, but it's time to let it be done by police forces, not armies that may be needed to crush an enemy. NATO, to quote the secretary of defense, needs to beef up its intelligence work, its precision weapons, and its defenses against a range of new threats--chemical, biological, and, yes, nuclear.

The several thousand American troops in the Balkans, and the 39,000 NATO troops there in all, represent only one drain on the Western alliance's military forces, which ought to be concentrating on fighting wars, not playing policeman.

The United States now has forces of varying sizes in some 140 countries around the world--not just in Germany, Japan, and South Korea but in Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, East Timor and the Sinai. And it now takes 7 support personnel to back up each of those soldiers in the field.

But the manpower and materiel required by these assignments are the least of the drags on American military power. Reducing an army to a scattered collection of garrison soldiers around the world eats away at its readiness, its morale, and its ability to strike quickly with overwhelming power when it needs to--as in Afghanistan and soon enough elsewhere. Armies rust, too.

While listening to Donald Rumsfeld at Brussels, it occurred that his first stint as secretary of defense (in the Ford administration) was just practice for the job he's doing now that he's been seasoned. (He'll be 70 next year.) It's as if the man had been born for this particular time, and this particular service.

For understandable reasons, Time magazine chose Rudy Giuliani as its Man of the Year. Excuse us, Person of the Year. (As if some of us wouldn't have voted for Maggie Thatcher as Man of the Year time and again.) But despite a wealth of choices this fateful year, we might have chosen a different honoree: a plain-spoken midwesterner who is eloquent only when it comes to results.

You don't run across too many plain people in politics or anywhere else any more, have you noticed? But this one is right where he belongs.

Although I absolutely adore Don Rumsfeld and believe he deserves every honor that goes his way, there is only one person deserving of Man of the Year. That is George W. Bush. It was the President who, acting on Dick Cheney's advice, who had the foresight to bring Rumsfeld back to Defense. It was the President who charged Rumsfeld with the very difficult job of coming up with a plan to restructure our military to face 21st Century threats. It was the President who gave clear, unambiguous war (as opposed to pinprick) goals to Defense after 9/11. It was the President who connected with the average man and woman in uniform in a way not seen, perhaps, since Eisenhower, and who has begun the steps necessary to increase their pay and improve their living standards.

None of us can know the future, so we don't know how the next three (hopefully seven) years of his term will proceed. Certainly the Democrats and their media allies will look for every opportunity to try to tarnish his standing with the American public. (Enron will be the next club they try to hammer him with.) But this President has already achieved a measure of true greatness that few people in all of human history have achieved. Unless he, himself, falters somehow, we will be measuring his impact on history for many decades to come -- long after some of the publications and pundits who continue to underestimate him have passed from the scene.

Policing places like the Balkans is useful work, but it's time to let it be done by police forces, not armies that may be needed to crush an enemy.

The Rumsfeld Doctrine--the US Armed Forces are for killing people and breaking things, not peacekeeping and nation building. Let the French and Fijians do that.

Thank God the grownups are back in charge.

Donald Rumsfeld could be president of the Dull Men's Club.

The author should know that more intelligent people are tuning in to the "Rummy Show" than watching afternoon soaps and quiz shows. Donald Rumsfeld is anything other than "Dull."

W is neither a politician nor a statesman, but he is a terrific LEADER. He knows right from wrong, sees issues mostly as black and white, and will listen to see through the gray cloud of confusion. Clinton never got that far. W assembled a seasoned TEAM experts, whom he positions them to do their job. He takes their intellectual pulse occasionally, and leaves them alone to "carry on," as British are so correct in saying.

Let's all hope that W and his adult Cabinet folks continue carrying out their tasks.

Now, if W could just find someone to shove a cork up some Daschole, maybe we could get a breather from listening to the liberal socialists!

Wolfstar, I agree with much of your post, but

It was the President who, acting on Dick Cheney's advice, who had the foresight to bring Rumsfeld back to Defense.

It was the President who chose Cheney as a key advisor in the first place.

And,

It was the President who gave clear, unambiguous war (as opposed to pinprick) goals to Defense after 9/11.

I have read that he had directed Defense to come up with a plan to deal with bin Laden earlier, and that plan had been delivered to Condi Rice on 9/10. Which is why they were so prepared.
I've been a Bush fan since the early primaries, and it still surprises me that he has been so clear about what needed to be done. He wasn't nearly as unprepared as we were led to believe. Maybe he got it from watching his dad, but wherever he got it, he ran with the intention of being a leader, and having a very good idea of what that meant.
He's one who wanted the job, not the perks - he doesn't even seem to like the perks.

I celebrate! An administration of experienced, confident, competent people who don't change directions with every poll or news outburst of criticism. In spite of the serious problems we face as a nation, I feel whole and healthy and capable again, thanks to our successful leaders.

Thanks for the ping, JeanS.

This looks like a good thread to post some local info from my local newsrag. Yesterday's huge headlines: IT'S BUSH. That seemed strange so I read the article (something I seldom do). It seems that the newspaper did a tri-state (WV, Oh, Ky) poll asking who was the most influential person of 2001. Results of 241 votes: George Bush 109, Mayor Guliani 54, Osama bin laden 49, Tony Blair 10, God/Jesus 4 (!), Dale Earnhardt, Oprah Winfrey, New York firefighters/police 3, Bob Wise (Gov.WV), Creators of South Park, Jim Tressel(OSU football coach), Ric Flair (Pro wrestler), Larry King, Children 1, Augustus Busch (beer magnate) 1. LOL. Some of these votes reflect the indiginous population.

Speekinout, thanks for your comments. You are right, of course, about the President's foresight in selecting Dick Cheney to be his running mate. Those of us, myself included, who admire Cheney but were worried about winning the election, fretted about this choice. But the then future President was already preparing to govern should he be elected. His wisdom paid immense dividends both in the team VP Cheney helped the President put in place, and on that fateful day when the nation so desperately needed Dick Cheney's experience and steadiness in Washington while the President made his way safely back to the Capitol.

Wolfstar, I think W has always had governing as his priority. He wanted to govern in his way more than he wanted to win.
He's been rewarded with what are really astronomical popularity ratings. But I think he still will do it his way when (and it's inevitable!) his ratings hit the tank.
Of course, I will always applaud him - even if he does something I disagree with (and I did with the airport security fiasco!) - because he has integrity and a direction at his core. He cares about US more than he does about his political future. And he's picked people who feel the same way.

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