Rumsfeld is the star of reality TV, D.C.-style
By Faye Fiore
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — Twice weekly, sometimes more, he stands at the Pentagon podium, eyes squinted and nose crinkled against the Klieg lights, facing a firing squad of about 80 reporters. Except, he usually is the one holding the guns.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is the voice of the war in Afghanistan, his news briefings a midday staple for people who call his office asking what time the Rummy Show comes on. It's reality TV, Washington, D.C., style — unscripted but not exactly candid.
Asked recently if he could define parameters of the search for Taliban leaders, Rumsfeld replied: "I could, but I'm not inclined to."
Prodded for one too many details about gear falling off a helicopter, the secretary snickered: "I get the feeling we've got an instinct for the capillaries."
Asked how he knew if Taliban forces were dead or simply running out of Afghanistan to neighboring countries, he shrugged: "Life isn't perfect."
Wars have a way of making heroes of ordinary men, but this one has made a media star of a 69-year-old master bureaucrat with rimless spectacles, brown hiking shoes and an acid wit that he appears to find amusing. But then, so do most of a growing number of cable TV junkies who tune in to watch him.
He is the controller of the message, casting the war's every turn in the best light while verbally abusing the fourth estate. He is the latest lampoon on "Saturday Night Live." His stripped-down, war-ain't-pretty accounts of what we are doing over there might be the most unvarnished in Washington, D.C.
Rumsfeld refers to the accused terrorist mastermind as "Osama bin Laden, comma, mass-murderer." Iraq is "a bad regime." And he consistently has refused to indulge the notion that U.S. troops are there to do anything less than kill the enemy.
When war planes started dropping cluster bombs, to the dismay of humanitarian groups, Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers were asked to give the rationale for employing such a vicious weapon.
Myers launched an explanation of how the nation is prosecuting a war on terrorism and trying to be careful about hitting civilians. Rumsfeld said this: "They are being used on front-line al-Qaida and Taliban troops to try to kill them ... to be perfectly blunt."
Asked to confirm reports that Taliban troops in Kunduz were killed to prevent them from surrendering, Rumsfeld said: "I have seen reports that people have been found with bullets in their heads, and not in the fronts."
Rumsfeld's self-assurance has been known to border on arrogance, but that was in peacetime. In war, he is the embodiment of American confidence.
A chief executive with a government pedigree — he once ran the pharmaceutical giant G.D. Searle and served as defense secretary under President Ford — Rumsfeld is the picture of success and sensibility. He wears his worn-out hiking shoes to work "when I mentally feel I would prefer to be in Taos, New Mexico," his retreat. His suits, usually gray, are expensive but old. "He is very thrifty," one underling said. With words, it seems, as much as with money.
Reporters have been skewered for long-winded queries and stupid questions (among the most memorable: What are you going to bomb next?) so many times that they now choose their words precisely.
"He reminds me of a stern headmaster at a boys' school," said Tom Bowman, Pentagon reporter for The Baltimore Sun. "You have to really be on your toes with him."
Born in a Chicago suburb and educated at Princeton, Rumsfeld toggles between folksy and searing, peppering his speech with Midwestern "oh, goshes" and "by gollies," then striking as unpredictably as a thunderstorm.
Rumsfeld as war minister seems to have captivated CNN, MSNBC and Fox News addicts who tune into him for battle news. What they get is his tightly controlled version of it, eked out in globules for reporters prevented from covering U.S. ground troops.
"On the one hand," Bowman said, "he is very entertaining. On the other hand, I am troubled by his press policy, not giving access to troops overseas. He really is controlling the message."
Still, Rumsfeld has proved a master at making news; the message is almost always the same — American troops successfully press on — skillfully wrapped in fresh details of cave-hunting and special forces on horseback that consistently land on Page 1.
While many counterparts in the administration are boring, few can be sure what Rumsfeld is going to say when he lets fly. The results usually are amusing, even when he doesn't say anything at all.
"It's the most entertaining press conference in Washington these days. I've been told he actually enjoys it," one Pentagon reporter said. "When he makes news, he means to."
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