Was That Really Donald Rumsfeld?
The byline in the Post said yes, but the prose beneath it said no.

By Hart Seely
Tuesday, December 4, 2007 12:00 AM

In Sunday's Outlook there was an essay by Donald Rumsfeld on Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. The Post billed the author as "a former secretary of defense."

This is like calling O.J. Simpson "a former Buffalo Bill."

Five years ago, Rumsfeld strode the earth as America's tribal elder, the veteran quarterback who would topple Saddam, dismantle Iraq's doomsday machine and restore dollar-a-gallon gasoline. Whether chiding the media or decrying life's "unknown unknowns," he stole every news conference. Then the war soured, and Rumsfeld began to look like the publisher who rejected Harry Potter, the guy who traded all his draft picks for Eli Manning.

Since the 2006 elections, Rumsfeld has been sitting in the penalty box, presumably writing his memoirs and mulling a comeback. If Hugo Chavez is the new Saddam, there's no better time than now.

But essays won't supply the Rumsfeld fix we crave.

Trust me on this. I know how Rumsfeld talks. In a previous incarnation, I read his every speech and transcript the slow, painful way -- moving my lips with each word. I can tell you that Sunday's essay did not bubble forth from the mineral springs of Rumsfeld's soul. Rather, it gurgled out like the scratchings of a man who sleeps with Alan Greenspan tapes playing in the pillow.

Of course, it's just one essay. Still, it pains me to see Rumsfeld tell of "building the global architecture" or advocate "a 21st century U.S. Agency for Global Communications." I flinch thinking of Rumsfeld in a Pentagon news gaggle, karate-chopping the air and barking, "Endemic inertia and corruption threaten to render the United Nations even less effective in the 21st century."

"Endemic inertia?" These are weenie words, pulled not from Rumsfeld's lexicon but from Roget's Thesaurus. Where is the old warrior who railed about shaved gorillas, electric fans and aerial photographs on the Internet? Where is Rumsfeld, the philosopher? Rumsfeld, the rock star?

Rumsfeld, the poet?

Back in the salad days of 2002, Rumsfeld warned of endemic inertia in a far more artistic way:

It's always hard.
It's always hard.
Change is hard for people.
We know that.

You get up in the morning,
And the first thing you want to do,
You don't want to change,
You want to do what you're doing.

Now, he tells us: "Pundits tend to focus on individuals, not institutions. Personalities, after all, garner more headlines than do bureaucracies and agreements."

Wait a minute. No Bush administration official ever came off more colorfully, more personably, than Rumsfeld. Whenever he read from the script, reporters took it as a cue to check their phone messages. When he started bellyaching about rumors or tough questions, the notepads flashed.

And Rumsfeld, as much as anybody, knew this.

"Building the global architecture?" My goodness! In 2001, Rumsfeld told the New York Times editorial board:

If you're chasing the chicken
Around the chicken yard
And you don't have him yet,
And the question is, how close are you?
The answer is, it's tough to characterize
Because there's lots of zigs and zags.

Worst of all, Sunday's essay tells us nothing about what we want most to know: The zigs and zags in Rumsfeld's life. Has he gained weight? Restless Leg Syndrome? Has he grown a hippie beard, like Al Gore did after the 2000 election? Does he Sudoko? And what about the Cubs!?

Of course, that's what book tours are for. And surely, one of these days, Rumsfeld will start turning up with O'Reilly and Rush and Oprah, and if sales aren't flying, maybe even Colbert. We'll watch transfixed, remembering the days when smart bombs were smart, exit plans looked solid and "shock and awe" foreshadowed the way we would celebrate when the troops came home.

The best days of this war.

It's nice to see Rumsfeld taking on another bad guy. But let's not kid ourselves. He won't be remembered for his essays any more than O.J. will be for his touchdowns. It's too late for a new legacy. Sometimes, inertia can be downright endemic.

Hart Seely is a reporter for the Syracuse Post-Standard and editor of "Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld."