The Dartmouth Observer |
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Commentary on politics, history, culture, and literature by two Dartmouth graduates and their buddies
WHO WE ARE Chien Wen Kung graduated from Dartmouth College in 2004 and majored in History and English. He is currently a civil servant in Singapore. Someday, he hopes to pursue a PhD in History. John Stevenson graduated from Dartmouth College in 2005 with a BA in Government and War and Peace Studies. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He hopes to pursue a career in teaching and research. Kwame A. Holmes did not graduate from Dartmouth. However, after graduating from Florida A+M University in 2003, he began a doctorate in history at the University of Illinois--Urbana Champaign. Having moved to Chicago to write a dissertation on Black-Gay-Urban life in Washington D.C., he attached himself to the leg of John Stevenson and is thrilled to sporadically blog on the Dartmouth Observer. Feel free to email him comments, criticisms, spelling/grammar suggestions. BLOGS/WEBSITES WE READ The American Scene Arts & Letters Daily Agenda Gap Stephen Bainbridge Jack Balkin Becker and Posner Belgravia Dispatch Black Prof The Corner Demosthenes Daniel Drezner Five Rupees Free Dartmouth Galley Slaves Instapundit Mickey Kaus The Little Green Blog Left2Right Joe Malchow Josh Marshall OxBlog Bradford Plumer Political Theory Daily Info Andrew Samwick Right Reason Andrew Seal Andrew Sullivan Supreme Court Blog Tapped Tech Central Station UChicago Law Faculty Blog Volokh Conspiracy Washington Monthly Winds of Change Matthew Yglesias ARCHIVES BOOKS WE'RE READING CW's Books John's Books STUFF Site Feed    |
Monday, November 13, 2006
If not Rummy, then who? Oh look, Doug Feith is trying to rehabilitate Rummy in this Washington Post article. Read it and be amazed: almost everything that you think you know about the former SecDef is wrong, Feith claims. He's a "bundle of paradoxes, like a fascinating character in a work of epic literature." He's not an ideologue, but an empiricist who "does not suppress bad news; he acts on it." And then there's this passage, in which Feith tries to shift blame for the inadequate troop levels from his man to Generals Abizaid and Franks: But Rumsfeld never told Gen. John Abizaid or Gen. Tommy Franks that U.S. Central Command could not have the number of troops that the commanders deemed necessary. Rumsfeld is more politically sensitive than that -- he would never expose himself to the risk of a commander later saying that he had denied him the forces needed. If other generals are unhappy with the troop levels in Iraq, the problem is not that they failed to persuade Rumsfeld, but that they failed to persuade Abizaid or Franks.Ok, so let's assume Feith is being honest here: maybe Rummy wasn't that bad, and perhaps history will exonerate him. But it's still a maddeningly inadequate op-ed, because it begs the question: if Donald Rumsfeld, as Feith suggests, isn't responsible for the mess in Iraq (which Feith doesn't refer to at all), then who is? Name names Doug. |