Rumsfeld may be evil and incompetent, but...

[lwcon]

... he used to be kind of cool. What the hell happened?

[boobooday]

1. When was he cool?

Do tell!

[lwcon]

4. I don't think it's traitorous to admit he at least had some personality...

... something the rest of his colleagues don't have.

But now he's as colorless as the rest of them. And he's still evil and incompetent.

[boobooday]

5. He has a personality, true

But it is the personality of a sociopath.

That doesn't seem to make him such a standout in this crowd, as it seems to be the personality trait they all share . . .

[lwcon]

7. I used to get the sense that he was saying what he honestly felt...

... as opposed to the carefully parsed words the rest of them squeak out.

It didn't make the policies one whit better, but it was easier to watch than Chimpy's Peter Lorre-esque seething BS.

And, of course what he honestly felt was pretty sociopathic, I'll grant you that.

So anyway, I just wanted to mark the passing of one of the only backhandedly positive things one could say about any of them....

[boobooday]

12. The impression I get is that he is an arrogant bastard

Who has mastered a form of CEO-speak that is all form and no substance. Who kisses ass to those above him and patronizes and condescends to those he considers below him, which is everyone else.

He is so smug and confident as he presents his little verbal sculptures, which upon examination, dissolve like so many lollipops in the rain. And he looks at the sad little sticks sitting there, with all the candy melted away, and he will tell you that it is still gonna take 150 licks to get to the center.

In otherwords, add delusional to sociopath in my diagnosis.

[lwcon]

20. I'd say he's guilty on two counts, innocent on the third

Smug and confident -- check

Delusional sociopath -- check

But my tiny point that started all this was that he didn't speak like your garden-variety CEO.

CEO-speak is boring and predictable. Rummy in his prime combined the wildman swagger of Kilgore (Robert Duvall) in Apocalypse Now with the wheels-within-wheels inscrutability of Kurtz (Brando) in Apocalypse Now.

Seeing Rumsfeld coming up lame as a rationalizer is perhaps a measure of how exhausted the Bushies are. Their bravado and cynical imaginations seem to be running out....

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[mtnsnake]

2. When was he cool? When he served with the Nixon administration?

LOL!

[acmavm]

10. I know. The OP must be pulling our collective leg.

[lwcon]

11. Sort of...

I'm having fun with the idea that Rummy's fading feisty charms* are any solace vs. his terrible actions and legacy.

But I do think the philosophy of "I hate your politics and you're ugly, too" can get a bit silly.

Can't you hate Katherine Harris's politics without hating her breasts**?

___

* Which, IMHO are real
** Which, IMHO are not real

[acmavm]

13. Well, if your idea of 'feisty charms' consists of lying one's ass

off and not caring who or how many people you conniving schemes and plans hurts, even kills, they okay, he does (and always did) pull that crap off with a kind of macabre cheerfulness.

[lwcon]

15. That pretty much sums it up, yes (n/t)

[coalition_unwilling]

38. Even at the height of his popularity, when I would see\hear him

on TV with his haiku-esque pith-isms (my apologies to any serious students of haiku out there -- no disprespect intended), I always thought I was seeing a skull-death head talking. So I wasn't surprised to see some poster on DU call him "Rumskull," as it perfectly matched the visual I had of him. Personally, I prefer Rumsfailed or Rumsfool.

[Kokonoe]

3. I would call it like having swagger and guaranteeing to win

Florida when you know the election is rigged. In rummy's case he showed flair while ruining America knowing the reporters were paid off and in his pocket.

[lwcon]

8. Unfortunately for our soldiers...

... he didn't know how to guarantee a win in Iraq.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

6. ppppppheeeeeeew

[Submariner]

9. Nothing! Like Bush, Rummy has always been immature

[cliss]

14. I think what you're referring to

when you describe Rumsfailed as "cool" is his unusual way of speaking, his inflections, his colorful use of language.

I agree that Rumsfailed is a One of a Kind, they broke the mold when they made that one.

I've been puzzled about Don for a long time. I've read some of his poetry (it sucks), I've looked into his colorful language (it's not as creative as you might think).

Above all, his relentless lying has gradually turned him into a demon, it's probably made him insane because he wants so desperately to believe what he's saying - 101% All lies all the time.

Don Rumsfailed thinks of himself as a Renaissance Man - able to write poetry and kill thousands of people, at the same time.

[lwcon]

16. I never did see his poetry

I imagine it's something like:

My Butterfly-like Love

My love is like a butterfly,

By which I mean it's not a butterfly at this time,

Which means could be a caterpillar.

But some things that aren't butterflies

Aren't caterpillars, and yet in some way they could be butterfly-like.

It is unlike butter, which isn't butterfly-like, but like some flies that aren't butterflies yet are still like them.

My love is like that.

[cliss]

17. Hey, you got it!

This could have been written by the old Parasite himself. Good Gosh Golly, Henny Penny and all that.

It's amazingly like his stuff!

[Disturbed]

19. Rumsfailed doesn't care what people think.

He has $160 Million and is making millions more with Tamiflue. He doesn't need his job. His job is fun to him. He loves the power over life and death. He is a genuine Sociopath.

[Cocoa]

18. I know they used to say Rummy was appealing

I never got it, he struck me from the start as a giant prick.

[otohara]

21. People Magazine

remember when they named him a "hottie" - God, please help this country!

[rman]

22. He's neither cool nor incompetent

It's just that he doesn't have The People's interests at heart - but that's already covered by "evil". He's quite competent at being evil.

[lwcon]

24. His handling of the Iraq War isn't incompetent???

Rumsfeld and company threw out all the available post-war planning because they drank the PNAC Kool-Aid.

As people are starting to recognize this for the disaster it is, it's sapping the power away from these guys, so I'd have to say his evil cred has gone pretty far south. Not for want of trying, of course, but from a lack of competence.

Even the likes of Bill Kristol are starting to sweat their failure to execute their psychotic, imperialistic mission.

I'll grant that Rummy has an intriguing personality (or at least he used to until his collosal failure weighed him down), but his hubris and incompetence re: winning the peace don't help him achieve his goals, let alone ours.

Oh, and let's add one other small bit of incompetence: starting the war in the first place. Toppling the hemmed-in, secular government of highly factional Iraq in order to fight fundamentalist terrorism is like throwing a brick through your window to keep the bees out.

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[rman]

31. He's incompetent only if you believe he has people's best interests

at heart. In other words, if you believe he is not evil.
He plays his part in gaining control over Iraq's oil and in dividing the Iraqi people ("divide and conquer" and all that) - and he does so quite competently.

[lwcon]

32. The PNAC guys want to take over the Middle East...

... not to have the US slink out of another Vietnam. I can't imagine this smells like victory for Rummy:

“It’s out of control,” says Army Sgt. 1st Class Britt Ruble, behind the sandbags of an observation post in the capital of Anbar province. “We don’t have control of this ... we just don’t have enough boots on the ground.

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[rman]

33. There's no indication they are going to get out of there

They can be there militarily while there is no peace in Iraq. They're building military bases all over Iraq and this huge embassy complex in Baghdad. Obviously they don't plan on going away any time soon.

[lwcon]

34. They're almost certainly going to have to ramp down the troop size...

... before the elections, to opiate the public into thinking we're going to extricate ourselves from this thing.

Unless, of course, they decide nuking Iran will play better in Peoria. In that case, Rummy's going to have to be a lot more charming than Arnold the pig from Green Acres to get a nice word out of me.

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[rman]

35. maybe

They can hire more mercenaries. Increase troops after the elections. Once they got their fortresses build they don't necessarily need as many as they do now.

[lwcon]

36. How is the situation not going to keep getting more withering?

Even with the media totally in their pocket, they're unable to contain the bad news.

That's what worries me about their temptation to attack Iran -- they may feel the need to go even more wildass because Iraq is totally failing them from a PR perspective.

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[ShortnFiery]

25. Rummy never was cool ... Mojo Nixon would croon ...

Rummy's got NO Elvis! :P

[lwcon]

28. To me, the old Rummy was an unusual "character" in a Stepford admin

As The Wolf says in "Pulp Fiction," "just because you are a character doesn't mean that you have character."

Recognizing that Rummy was entertaining in the war briefings is simple honesty. He was an interesting performer.

I don't think we contaminate ourselves by acknowledging such little truths, because we're in the truth business.

We're the nuance guys, we can keep two ideas in our heads at the same time. Like if Bush tells a good joke, like the one about Dick Cheney wondering how Bush got those great 30% popularity ratings, I can laugh at it, and still hate the M-F for everything he's doing to us and the rest of the world. You can admire Tony Snow's Colgate smile and still think he's a tool.

Sometimes here, what I'll again refer to as the "I hate your politics, and you're ugly, too" philosophy makes us seem kind of silly and at times, even petty.

I think if we can look at these monsters on a human scale, it actually makes their misdeeds more meaningful.

Also, acknowledging their performance skills helps separate them from their policy skills and lack thereof. If only more of the public remembered that Reagan was just a guy who was skilled at reading other peoples' lines, rather than some great political "revolutionary."

And one more movie quote... At the end of "Badlands," a serial killer is told that he's quite a character. He asks ironically if "they'll take that into account." No answer was needed.

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[ShortnFiery]

29. Rummy was NOT ever entertaining to me because I saw thru the mask.

Since I first laid eyes on him, Rummy reminded me of the DEMENTED Uncle that parents always ensure to keep away from the children. The unasuming people who used to gush at "his style", past OR present, can not make me understand.

A CHARACTER? He was, and is, IMO, a ghoulishly power hungry mother f**ker ... A Ghoulish War-Monger / War-Profiteer type - CHARACTER ... and, don't get me wrong ... I mean that in the most perverse, ugly and evil sense of the term. :puke:

[lwcon]

30. Seeing through him isn't too hard, is it...?

...given the company he keeps.

And if he failed to entertain you while he ruined the world, then it's all for naught.

It's no surprise that the Bushfeld policy is still shite, but now the song and dance are just as lame.

Re: demented uncles and such, let's remember that nice, grandfatherly Ronald Reagan, who ushered in all the crap we're dealing with now.
Frankly, he creeped the hell out of me, but people found him charming for some reason.
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[ShortnFiery]

26. Yes! If winning = Corporate Profits > People, every thing's ROSES. n/t

Oh, Rummy is waiting with baited breath for that Bird Flu Pandemic. ;)

Tami-Flu ====> Rummy Profits BIG TIME!

[tirechewer]

23. He was never that great....

He was just able to bury who he was and what he thought under a lot of expert public relations like other political figures did. I don't think anyone ever saw his true personality or knew what he was capable of or not capable of. That's what "spin doctors" do. They hide the real you so that the warts don't show.

Rumsfeld was always a war monger with no real understanding of what war means. He loves theories and will kill and torture as many people as he has to to make his theories look like the truth. Bush's constant fumbling and bumbling and the war in Iraq produced a truer picture of both of them. Rumsfeld was just as adamant about keeping torture a part of his military mission as Cheney and Bush.

Perhaps the other presidents he served were stronger and better able to curb him, but he was never a nice guy. He was just good at appearing to be a nice guy. There is a world of difference.

[lwcon]

27. I make no claims that he has any competence whatsoever...

... or that he's a nice guy.

He's obviously quite atrocious at his job.

But he used to be entertaining. That he's not anymore seems to signal some sort of milestone in the Repubs' retreat.

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[tirechewer]

37. That's kind of....

what I was saying. In the beginning of Bush's tenure they had flawless public relations going, or maybe people were so afraid and shocked by the bombing of the World Trade Center that they needed to have them seem perfect and in charge.

Now that veneer has slipped in a major way. It has become obvious that none of them are benevolent authority figures we can depend on, and the actions they have set in motion have been blowing up in their faces for a long time now.

It's like people have had a veil ripped away from their eyes and can suddenly see a whole lot better. Besides we have become very familiar with their public coping strategies. They are what you could call a one trick pony. You know what they are going to do next, say next, and mess up next. Like a repetitive and not very well choreographed dance.

I didn't think you were a Rumsfeld supporter or anything, just that you were bringing up the point that he used to wear a different face in public.