Awaiting the Rumsfeld Doctrine

By Al Kamen
Friday, February 24, 2006

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has penciled in a visit next week to the Harry S. Truman library in Independence, Mo., to talk about President Bush 's war on terrorism and Truman's launching the long struggle against international communism.

The speech is still being worked on, so Pentagon folks won't talk about it. And they caution that the event may yet be scrubbed. But spokeswoman Hollen Wheeler allowed that the library would be an "appropriate venue for his message that day."

News that Rumsfeld would use Truman's library to compare the iconic Democrat's launching of NATO and the Marshall Plan with the Bush administration's policies is likely to spark howls of protest from some Truman fans. One official from the Truman administration called it "an insult to Truman's heritage."

Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), who knew Truman, put Rumsfeld's move to cloak Bush's efforts in Truman's mantle a bit more charitably: "Well, it's kind of a stretch," Skelton observed, "but God bless him for trying." (Skelton's busy preparing his own remarks at the library May 5, when he receives the Harry S. Truman public service award.)

On the other hand, as Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other Bush officials have reminded us, there are many parallels between today's situation in Iraq, for example, and post-World War II Germany. And then there's NATO, which Truman launched, and Bush's Coalition of the Willing. And both challenges involve long-term commitments.

Finally, "-isms" in general tend to be alike.

Duly Noted

Speaking of Rumsfeld, his former spokeswoman Torie Clarke , a communications guru and television talking head, is out with her new book counseling against excessive spinning: "Lipstick on a Pig."

But we detect a bit of spin when she modestly says in her introduction, "With the exception of scattered notes I took at the Pentagon on 9/11, I have never taken or saved notes at my many jobs."

Those are pretty significant notes, scattered though they may be. They are cited in the Sept. 11 commission's report when, hours after the planes struck, Rumsfeld said, according to the commission, "his instinct was to hit Saddam Hussein at the same time -- not only Bin Ladin."

Could be worth a lot of money someday, assuming they ever see the light of day.

Roll the B Footage

Buried in the Government Accountability Office's recent report on federal agencies' contracts with public relations firms is this little $10,000 item:

"Provide message development consultation and training for officials [of various Interior Department offices] and the Office of the Secretary of the Interior, including sessions targeting both verbal and nonverbal communication skills and message delivery training through interactive instruction and on-camera practice."

It is unclear if this no-bid contract -- to Berenson Communications -- actually improved Interior's message delivery, but we would certainly all love to see the outtakes from the non-verbal communication sessions.

Finger puppets? Artful brow-furrowing? Looking at the right camera?

Taking Terrorism Law on the Road

Former Justice Department official John Yoo , author of the famous Torture Memo and proponent of a most interesting view of presidential power, appears to be taking some time off from his teaching duties at the University of California at Berkeley law school.

The Web site for the State Department-sponsored Fulbright educational exchange program says Yoo will be off next month for a semester teaching at the University of Trento in Italy. The Fulbright Web site indicates he'll be lecturing and researching on "Terrorism and the Law."

The Trento site, however, says he's lecturing on "globalization and constitutional law." Whatever he's teaching, he might want to watch where he travels.

For example, an aggressive Spanish prosecutor -- and officials in three other countries -- tried to have former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet , who was visiting England, extradited to Spain for human rights crimes Pinochet committed there.

The effort ultimately failed to send Pinochet to Spain, but he was held in England -- albeit in a very nice house -- for more than a year while the matter was sorted out. Whether human rights groups can make a plausible legal case against a lawyer who finds legal support for interrogation techniques that others call torture is a hotly debated matter.

But that would be small comfort to Yoo if he's languishing for months in a dark, windowless tapas bar in Barcelona. Might be best to stay in Berlusconi-land -- much nicer than Gitmo.

From Maple Leaf to Old Glory

Winners of sporting events often thank their parents, their coaches, God or their sponsors for helping them. But Ben Agosto and Tanith Belbin , silver medalists in ice dancing in Turin, thanked Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) for enabling them to win the medal.

Not that either lawmaker is known for skating prowess. But they worked hard to make sure the Canadian Belbin got her U.S. citizenship in time to dance on the ice as an American.