Rumsfeld to teach public policy?

This has got to be the most tragically funny news I've seen in a long time.

It appears that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has decided that he wants to teach public policy to graduate and post-graduate students.

That's akin to Don Imus teaching a cultural sensitivity course. Beyond ridiculous.

In my mind, it's no stretch at all to call Rumsfeld the biggest war criminal this country has seen since Lt. William Calley of My Lai fame or former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

In today's Washington Times:

"He's considering a lot of things but he wants to remain engaged in public policy issues and is in the process of creating a foundation that would involve teaching and research fellowships for graduate and post-graduate students," Mr. Di Rita [a Rumsfeld aide] said.

The goal is to promote continued U.S. engagement in world affairs in furtherance of U.S. security interests, Mr. Di Rita said.

It's hard to believe that someone like Rumsfeld, for all of the death and destruction he's caused, to be in this much denial. My only question is, when people are this delusional, do they know it, or are they not even aware of how divorced from reality they really are?

Think Progress has some brilliant suggestions on what Rummy could teach his pupes.

I'm just imagining Professor Rumsfeld imparting his wisdom on his young charges. He should start a PR class, How to have the worst press relations ever in 10 easy steps:

1. How to ask and answer your own question, to the annoyance of millions. "Do I wish we had used more troops in Iraq? Yes! Do I have any credibility left with anyone in the free world because of my arrogance and obfuscations during my tenure as secretary of defense? No." [His habit of asking and answering his own questions is one of the most annoying traits I've ever heard in a civil servant - Richard Nixon's habitual references to himself in the third person rate a close second.]

2. When reporters ask you tough questions, just act like you know more than they do, and that it's complicated. One of my favorite examples of this is during his last press conference as defense secretary, a week or two before the election last fall. At a press, he became reeeeally annoyed with the line of questioning, so at one point, he admonished his questioners to "BACK OFF."

3. Be overly vague when the going gets tough. I'll never forget the press conference when he muttered "stuff happens" while Baghdad was being looted during the mayhem after President Bush declared "major combat operations are over."

4. If all else fails, just be vehement. No one mastered this better than Rummy. Even when he was lying (and that was pretty often), he would just act so emphatic to just try and scare some reporters into thinking he MUST be right. Wrong.

I could fill out the rest of the top ten, but you probably get the point.

Donald Rumsfeld... teaching public policy. As the saying goes, if a man lives long enough, he gets to see everything.

Photos from AP via HuffPo

One of the best political movies, ever

I know this movie is a bit older, but recent developments in the Bush administration mirror the embattled Nixon presidency more and more every day.

Tonight, as I was reading and catching up with the news, it got me to thinking about one of my favorite political movies of all time, Nixon.

The 1995 film was directed by Oliver Stone, and when the film opened it created a bit of controversy, but not nearly as much as his other notable, and oft-panned film, JFK.

Anyway, Nixon is a terrific movie, and superbly cast. Paul Sorvino as Henry Kissinger was a brilliant choice, as was Anthony Hopkins as Nixon and James Woods as H.R. Haldeman.

If you are a political junkie, this is a movie not to be missed. It's amazing to me how many parallels are emerging between the Bush and Nixon administrations, and the tragic similarities seem to increase with each passing day.

If you haven't seen Nixon, give it a shot. And bring your popcorn - it's three hours long.

By the way, I found an excellent interview between Stone and Mark Carnes, Professor of History at Columbia University. Anyone interested in President Nixon, and Stone's movie about him should read this - it has lots of interesting stuff about the thought processes that went into making the film, and what subject matter was considered.

Tom Hartmann Show the place for informed, reasonable debate on war

Today, I listened to a podcast of Thom Hartmann's show from yesterday, and during it, a Vietnam Veteran called in, and what he said struck me in a very profound way. He said that many Vietnam Veterans are alive today because Congress pulled the plug on that war. He also mentioned another thing I hadn't thought about - that generals are in the business of getting promoted (Read: Getting another star). When that happens, they are replaced with another general, who comes in and has to clean up the mess (or continue on with a war strategy that isn't working).

Pretty well stated, from a man who lived through the disaster of Vietnam.

When I heard the vet call in, it also reminded me of the new Nixon book that I blogged about last night: Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power, by Robert Dallek. The book was recently profiled and excerpted in Vanity Fair, and in that excerpt is the following passage from the book:

Using language that has a painfully contemporary echo, Kissinger and Nixon very quickly came to private conclusions about Vietnam that they never revealed publicly and denied entertaining. "In Saigon the tendency is to fight the war to victory," Nixon told Kissinger, according to the transcript of a 1969 phone conversation. "But you and I know it won't happen - it is impossible." Even so, according to [White House Chief of Staff Bob] Haldeman's unpublished diaries, Nixon later urged that Democratic critics making this same point should be labeled "the party of surrender." When someone told Kissinger that Nixon could not be re-elected, because of Vietnam, he disputed it and added, according to a memo of a conversation, that "anytime we want to get out of Vietnam we can," and that "we will get out of Vietnam before the [1972] election." Nixon wanted to plan the removal of all U.S. troops by the end of 1971, but Kissinger cautioned that, if North Vietnam then de-stabilized Saigon during the following year, events could have an adverse effect on the president's campaign. According to Haldeman's diaries, Kissinger advocated a pullout in the fall of 1972, "so that if any bad results follow they will be too late to affect the election." He apparently had nothing to say about the American lives that would be lost by deliberately prolonging the war. Just before a peace treaty was signed, Kissinger in a phone conversation advised Nixon against stating that this was a "lasting peace or guaranteed peace because this thing is almost certain to blow up sooner or later."

[Emphasis Mine]

When I heard the Vietnam Vet on Hartmann's show today, all I could think about are that the parallels between Vietnam and the War in Iraq grow more and more apropos by the day.

So, to quickly put the Vietnam War in perspective - 20,604 Americans gave their lives AFTER Nixon took office in January 1969 in a war that, according to Dallek, Kissinger said, "anytime we want to get out of Vietnam we can"? Just another revelation from a war that continues to be a national disgrace. When I read items like that, it's absolutely no stretch to say that President Nixon and Henry Kissinger are war criminals.

Put another way, it is not out of the question for Bush to pursue a similar strategy? Who among us, other than the blowhards at Fox News and the radical religious right, would be surprised if our troops were withdrawn from Iraq in July or August of next year, amidst a backdrop of Repubes claiming victory?

Whenever we bring all of our troops home out of Iraq, one thing is for certain - Democrats won't get an ounce of credit, at least among Republicans and most of the mainstream media.

Another caller on Hartmann's show, an MP from Arizona who served in Iraq, called in, and was livid at what this administration is doing to our military, and our soldiers. He briefly discussed the very active campaign to recall John McCain in Arizona. Whether the drive will ultimately be successful is anyone's guess, but it is a signal that his support is collapsing in his home state. This caller also discussed President Nixon's idea to use tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam to achieve victory. I've read about this before, and I don't know the veracity of those stories, but considering everything else Nixon did, it wouldn't really come as a shock. According to this caller, Nixon looked out onto the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and saw one million protesters sharply opposed to his war policies, and he changed his mind. His point in bringing up that story (true or not) is the power of the protest, and he makes an excellent point - our voices can and must make the difference in this war.

It's become a running theme with just about every election - that it's the "most important election in our lifetime." It does become trite, but I shudder to think what would have happened had the Democrats not regained control of Congress some 20 weeks ago.

One thing's for certain - there would be very few, if any, substantive discussions about bringing our troops home, and the Democrats would have been a marginalized minority, just like they were during the first six years of this administration.