Monday, September 04, 2006
John Dean on Donald Rumsfeld: Trust Nixon!
John Dean -- yes, that John Dean -- has been posting over at Firedoglake. Jane Hamsher approvingly links to a comment of Dean's about Donald Rumsfeld. In a comment thread that involves hammering Rumsfeld and declaring that "Keith Olberman is the most intelligent anchor in America," Dean describes his memory of Rumsfeld's time in the Nixon White House:
Rumsfeld came to the Nixon White House in 1970 some five months after I arrived. At the time, I asked White House chief of staff Bob Haldeman what Rummy was going to be doing. “Nothing,” Haldeman told me, explaining that they were placing him on the White House staff (giving him a sinecure) to bolster his chances to win a Senate race in IL.
In time, Haldeman — not to mention — Nixon came to distrust Rumsfeld. Many thought Nixon appointed him Ambassador to NATO as a promotion. In fact, they wanted to get him out of the White House. Haldeman called Rumsfeld “slimmy” [sic] in his contemporaneous diaries, and Nixon is heard on his tapes discussing Rumsfeld in less than flattering terms.
Er, didn't "Haldeman -- not to mention -- Nixon" come to distrust Dean? Since when does John Dean think that the trust of H.R. Haldeman and Richard Nixon is a measure of character?
Then there's this:
Most ironic, given Rumsfeld’s current position on Iraq, Rumsfeld argued that Nixon should get the hell out of Vietnam. Rummy was a cut and run guy back then.
According to my memory and the more reliable public record, Donald Rumsfeld has consistently maintained that Iraq is an entirely different situation than Vietnam, and that the lessons of Vietnam, whatever they are, do not apply in Iraq. John Dean, it seems, does not know the meaning of the word "ironic." It's ironic that he would cite the opinions of Nixon and Haldeman to indict Rumsfeld's character. It's consistent for Rumsfeld to have a different opinion about the prosecution of the war in Iraq than he did, 36 years ago, about Vietnam.
15 Comments:
By 
Georg Felis, at
Tue Sep 05, 09:55:00 AM:
What, you expect Liberals to be rational and consistent?
By 
, at
Tue Sep 05, 10:20:00 AM:
I think Dean is trying to say that even Nixon and Haldeman didn't trust Rummy, which I suppose is saying alot.
Other writers besides Dean confirm this general sense of the Nixon people that Rumsfeld was a climber and would only take positions and posts convenient to his career.
I don't think Don Rumsfeld's own logic on Iraq's differences from Vietnam is sufficient to exculpate him from charges that he is inconsistent, either. I think he's just stuck with the mess-Bush will not let him leave, he's already offered to resign. When this is all said and done, it will be his neck that Iraq is hung around. It may come sooner than that. We'll see in November. Just a guess.
Allow me to take a stab at the lesson of Vietnam: Don't get into things you can't get out of.
By , at
Tue Sep 05, 11:56:00 AM:
It's nice to know that there is someplace in the blogosphere that is totally appropriate for John Dean. I hope that he gets all that is due him.
And for the Iraqis, there IS no exit strategy. For good or for ill, they live there. If we pull out of there, and the place DOES go to Hell, the US will NEVER have any credibility with ANY Arab government for a very, very long time. Something to ponder, perhaps.
-David
By , at
Tue Sep 05, 12:04:00 PM:
Sirius, we refused to get out of Vietnam for over 10 years until we had 58,000 dead Amercians and heaven knows how many Vietnamese dead. Vietnam did not go to hell when we left. Hell was already in the neighborhood. Next door, actually.
Why did all those soldiers and civilians die? Because we stayed the course. Nothing was achieved and that civil war was none of our business.
In both cases we should never have been there in the first place. Pure stubbornness kept LBJ in Vietnam and I imagine that is what keeps George Bush in Iraq.
90% of Iraqis want us to go away. We are an irritant in this mix, not a salve.
By , at
Tue Sep 05, 12:08:00 PM:
Anonymous, name me one Arab nation that we will lose credibility with that we haven't lost already, please.
I think recklessly tearing apart Iraq's government should probably suffic as a reason not to trust us for a long time coming. The withdrawal will only be icing on the cake.
By Final Historian, at
Tue Sep 05, 01:01:00 PM:
"90% of Iraqis want us to go away."
Thank you. I was wondering if you were someone worth listening to, and this answered that question for me.
By , at
Tue Sep 05, 01:36:00 PM:
Oh, I'm sorry. Here's my source:
http://www.centerface.blog-city.com/leave_us.htm
That's my blog, I'm not exactly sourcing myself, it comes from another link available on that page. Easier for me to dig up that way.
By , at
Tue Sep 05, 09:13:00 PM:
It is difficult for me to see how anyone who was a grownup during the Vietnam War could equate it with the circumstances of our entry into Iraq and the prosecution of the war there.
By RonB, at
Tue Sep 05, 09:28:00 PM:
Yeah, that said alot, Jim. I'm sure your points are on very solid ground after showing your age.
I am humbled.
Seriously Jim, no one(not me at least)is arguing that the entry is the same, or the prosecution. What is the same is that interventionism based upon an untested theory or rosy ideology(the dominoes will fall, we must build democracies in the Middle East because thats what they want and the terrorists hate it) is a surefire loser. Another thing that is the same is that both presidents could not let go of the idea that it was something we HAD to do.
Look, when the reasons were false, the execution horrendous, and the situation on the ground either ignored or misapprehended, how, how I ask you can this thing work?
By , at
Wed Sep 06, 10:34:00 AM:
we must build democracies in the Middle East because thats what they want and the terrorists hate it) is a surefire loser.
As opposed to murderous theocracies or despotic regimes with nuclear bomb ambitions , whelp democracies sound pretty good.
Of course leftists ultimately love totalitarianism, so maybe its not so good sounding to them.
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Wed Sep 06, 07:27:00 PM:
RonB you've hit all the standard talking points in succession, and their refutation is underway. It often takes more than a few paragraphs to root out ill-founded assumptions that run so deep, but it can be done. We do it all the time, actually. So stick around, and be ready to engage, one point at a time.
For openers: sirius_sir made the point that we left Vietnam and the place went to hell. Your counter was that the place was already hellish.
The aftermath for South Vietnam was so significantly worse than the war as to beggar description. The few survivors who made it here, or a simple bit of research into the numbers, will give evidence of this.
Someone pick up one of the next points, please.
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Wed Sep 06, 07:36:00 PM:
BTW, would anyone pay attention to John Dean if he weren't criticizing Bush or writing about unrelated subjects?
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri Sep 08, 02:55:00 PM:
It saddens me that I even have to make this point.
"Things went to hell after we left."
"Well hell was next door!"
Who do you think was keeping hell at bay all those years? WE were.
So what do you think will happen if we shamefully evacuate Iraq? Hell will arrive again, heralded by Supreme Leader Sadr and his Iranian masters.
If you're ok with that, you need to revisit your values system and/or educate yourself better in world history and affairs, or get out of my military.
By RonB, at
Sat Sep 09, 01:32:00 AM:
Village Idiot:
You forgot to mention the 58000 soldiers who died for NOTHING AT ALL trying to mitigate the Vietnamese civil war.
You all ready for the next 10,000 soldiers to die for the next useless intervention?
Thanks, why dont you guys go enlist for it. Im done with it.
By RonB, at
Sat Sep 09, 01:35:00 AM:
woops, you're already in, Dawnfire, have fun, the promotions should come fast!
