Dowd on Rumsfeld

Here is a bit from a NY Times opinion piece by Maureen Dowd on Donald Rumsfeld and the book tour with his autobiography:

Donald Rumsfeld is starting to make Robert McNamara look good.

At least McNamara felt sorry at the end for all those lives and limbs lost because of his colossal misjudgments and cretinous refusal to admit mistakes.

“We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose,” a penitent McNamara said.

By contrast, when Diane Sawyer asked Rumsfeld last week if he ever revisited decisions that cost lives, he blandly replied, “Well, you know, in a war, many things cost lives.”

Goodness, gracious, stuff happens.

As a Republican congressman in the Johnson era and a Nixon White House official, Rummy had a front-row seat to the ego-driven bungling on Vietnam. But unlike McNamara, who said that the U.S. repeated Vietnam’s moral, political, economic and cultural mistakes in Iraq, Rumsfeld is still blinded by ego.

I despise both McNamara and Rumsfeld. Both did enormous damage to the US. McNamara at least came to "regret" his errors. I'm pretty sure Rumsfeld will go to his grave pounding his chest and claiming to be a hero.

The reality is that America went from a powerhouse country in the 1950s and 1960s to a pathetic superpower in decline. The US is bankrupt but the leadership is unwilling to face this face nor talk to the electorate about what must be done to live within the country's dwindling means.