Rumsfeld's Reports to the President

[oblong]

I'm really not sure what to make of this. GQ isn't really know for it's investigative reporting.

http://men.style.com/gq/features/topsecret

[Brandon Friedman]

It's who the writer is. In this case, the author of the corresponding, feature-length piece (link below) is Robert Draper. Draper is George W. Bush's biographer and the author of Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush. Besides freelancing for GQ, he's also written for Rolling Stone, National Geographic, and appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He's had a lot of access in the past few years.

The bible verse images go along with this piece:

http://men.style.com/gq/features/lan...d=content_9217

It's pretty devastating stuff if you're a Rumsfeld fan.

[Ken White]

That's pretty well not involved at all. Whether those briefs went to the WH or not is not known, some or all may or may not have done so. What you have is a cover slide made to appeal to a Born Again President, in the event the briefings did get there.

What we really have here is much ado about nothing, a NYT that is on life support and a slow news day. It's about as devastating as finding out Rumsfeld was a Naval Aviator, a group known for their extreme religious views.

[Brandon Friedman]

If you read the actual piece, you'll see that Draper doesn't suggest Rumsfeld is religious. Quite the opposite. Here's what he says:

The Scripture-adorned cover sheets illustrate one specific complaint I heard again and again: that Rumsfeld’s tactics—such as playing a religious angle with the president—often ran counter to sound decision-making and could, occasionally, compromise the administration’s best interests. In the case of the sheets, publicly flaunting his own religious views was not at all the SecDef’s style—“Rumsfeld was old-fashioned that way,” Shaffer acknowledged when I contacted him about the briefings—but it was decidedly Bush’s style, and Rumsfeld likely saw the Scriptures as a way of making a personal connection with a president who frequently quoted the Bible. No matter that, if leaked, the images would reinforce impressions that the administration was embarking on a religious war and could escalate tensions with the Muslim world. The sheets were not Rumsfeld’s direct invention—and he could thus distance himself from them, should that prove necessary.

Still, the sheer cunning of pairing unsentimental intelligence with religious righteousness bore the signature of one man: Donald Rumsfeld. And as historians slog through the smoke and mirrors of his tenure, they may find that Rumsfeld’s most enduring legacy will be the damage he did to Bush’s.

What's devastating are the multiple sources from within the administration telling Draper what an awful Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was. The piece isn't simply about the cover sheets.

[Cavguy]

My thoughts align with a blog post I read on this:

"And here I though he was a terrible secretary of defense even before I read this"

I'm just glad he's gone. What was depressing was the assertion that the president's close advisors were unanimous in support of fining him by early 2006, but the "general's revolt" kept Rummy's dysfunction around for another six months so they wouldn't appear weak.

[Ken White]

Not to defend the Cover Sheets which the NYT also touted, thus my mentioning them -- as theoretically in some quarters having more validity than GQ (LINK) and they also quote Di Rita as saying that he doubted Rumsfeld, the grump, would have tolerated the, for long; he was notorious for not wasting his time on dumb slides.

In any event, the cover sheets were dumb regardless of who directed or did them.

Nor am I defending Rumsfeld -- he did some dumb stuff -- but he's really about in the middle of the pack of all SecDefs. There have been several who did far more damage.

I served under or worked as a civilian under all of 'em except the very first and the last three. Louis Johnson was hands down the worst, McNamara was second worst followed by Aspin and there are several following closely on their heels including Wilson, Cheney and Clifford.

Melvin Laird and James Schlesinger (though Schlesinger did not do well at rhe CIA) were about the best, with Weinberger, Perry, Carlucci and Cohen also pretty good. Gates may be the best yet, too early to tell.

Draper may be the Pope's, the current and former President's and anyone else's biographer but if he's writing for serious 'history' for GQ, what can I say.

One man's 'devastating' is another's chuckle for the day...

[Van]

One man's 'devastating' is another's chuckle for the day...

Ken,
The 'devastating' aspect of this is not the petty internal squabbling (at least from where I sit), but the way people outside the Whitehouse, the DoD, and the U.S. will perceive this. All the people who held the belief that Pres. G.W. Bush was a religious fanatic (including Islamic religious fanatics, but many moderate Islamics, and many Europeans) will view this as explicit confirmation of their belief.

This is a serious kick in the sensitives to the strategic IO efforts for the U.S.

I'll stay away from your 'rack and stack' of SecDefs, but I pretty much agree about Rumsfeld. He is typical of senior bureaucratic leadership, possibly of higher integrity than most (but this is damning with faint praise). The key world being 'typical'; I would hope the senior official of the DoD would be extraordinary.

[Ken White]

The 'devastating' aspect of this is not the petty internal squabbling (at least from where I sit), but the way people outside the Whitehouse, the DoD, and the U.S. will perceive this. All the people who held the belief that Pres. G.W. Bush was a religious fanatic (including Islamic religious fanatics, but many moderate Islamics, and many Europeans) will view this as explicit confirmation of their belief.

to our internal foolishness and loose cannon media as we do. Fortunately. They judge us by what we do which is problem enough...

It's another tempest in the media tea service.

This is a serious kick in the sensitives to the strategic IO efforts for the U.S.

No doubt some will want it to be but I doubt it'll have any long term effect -- most people, here and overseas have their minds made up on both Bush and Rumsfeld (even though it is far too early to even think of judging the effects of either) and this will make little difference to most.

...I would hope the senior official of the DoD would be extraordinary.

So would I but then a George C. Marshall only comes along once in a lifetime (thus I've seen mine -- your's is yet to come... ).

Politicians are mostly mediocrities -- they're shrewd, even smart on occasion but they tend to nominate even lesser persons as subordinates. Someone once said that most men hired persons of lesser stature than themselves and thus tended to produce companies of midgets; only the very few truly wise hired men of greater capability -- and they produced companies of Giants...

Lack of self confidence does some terrible tricks on people.

[Schmedlap]

Here is what I'm curious about...

1. Did most slideshows have quotes on each slide?
2. How many slideshows did not have Bible passages, but had passages from other sources?
3. If the answer to #1 is "yes" and the answer to #2 is "most" then will the reporter who "broke" suffer any negative impact on his career for actual or apparent dishonesty?
4. If the answer to #1 is "no" then what was the point of this slideshow? Did a sitting SECDEF think that a sitting President was as brain-dead and easily manipulated as an average boob who sits on the couch and stares at the TV for 4 hours a day? Did he really believe that a politician "got religion" rather than purporting to be born again in order to appeal to a large constituency?

[Presley Cannady]

With the exception of the quote above Hussein's presser photo and the invocation celebrating the fall of Baghdad, it seems most of these passages deal with a man's personal relationship with God in trying times. And according to the article, it seems that's what General Shaffer had in mind by slipping them in. There's no fire and brimstone, no call for man to judge other men in the name of the Lord, no admonitions of the heritage of the Other. I'm not exactly a believer, but I'd have to be pretty touchy about proselytization to be offended by this sort of thing.

The rest of the article seems to be a process story surrounding office politics with one extraordinary thread: for all the people griping about Rumsfeld's office hardball, there don't seem to be many that have suffered professionally for it. Where are all the RIFs?

[Presley Cannady]

And Rumsfeld's reaction here. Bottom line, he says these slides did not filter up to the President, and only occasionally to him. If it's a cover up, it's a damned confounding one. Why would a former SecDef try to hide evidence that a publicly evangelical Christian is...well...religious?

[Rex Brynen]

There's no fire and brimstone, no call for man to judge other men in the name of the Lord, no admonitions of the heritage of the Other. I'm not exactly a believer, but I'd have to be pretty touchy about proselytization to be offended by this sort of thing.

I'm willing to take Rumsfield's comment at face value--that he wasn't involved in the covers, that they weren't intended to influence Bush, and indeed that POTUS rarely if ever saw them.

That leaves the issue of how incredibly stupid it is to adorn intel briefs with religious comments, especially at a time when it is an absolutely critical diplomatic, political, and IO imperative that US military actions NOT be cast in terms of an apparent Christian religious crusade.

Not only am I dumbfounded that anyone could so abuse an intel briefing system and so misunderstood the critical interests and operational requirements of the GWOT as to do this, but I'm even more appalled by the fact that no one in the Pentagon apparently had either the wisdom or the intestinal fortitude to put an end to it after the first such incident. Sheesh.

[Presley Cannady]

I think that battle was lost long ago, and Crusaderism foments aging bad feelings compared to today's visceral hate radicals direct at their society's secularists.

Now if we could cast the US as a Muslim nation overnight...that would make for the psyop of the century.

[Culpeper]

Mr. President: I don't know what to think. Is it really that bad? We're all going to die? I had no idea. Oh, this is really bad. What about my transparency? What about the "prisoners". Oh, my!

Rumsfeld: Ah, will you knock it off Hussien! Always with the negative waves. Can't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?

[Courtney Massengale]

Not only am I dumbfounded that anyone could so abuse an intel briefing system and so misunderstood the critical interests and operational requirements of the GWOT as to do this, but I'm even more appalled by the fact that no one in the Pentagon apparently had either the wisdom or the intestinal fortitude to put an end to it after the first such incident. Sheesh.

The generation that is running things right now is the generation that survived the draw down of the 90s.

Not making any accusations in particular, but when you have two equal files in front of you and one of them has to go, little things like having a bible verse hanging on your wall or being seen in church on Sunday went a long way provided your boss was of the same persuasion.

We trained an entire generation of the Officer corps to give the boss what he wants to have your career survive. And we wonder why #### like this happens.

[Ken White]

The generation that is running things right now is the generation that survived the draw down of the 90s...

We trained an entire generation of the Officer corps to give the boss what he wants to have your career survive. And we wonder why #### like this happens.

and doing what's needed or right is poorly tolerated ...

Well said, C.M.