Donald Rumsfeld | The New York Observer

Steve Kroft Quaffs as Cafe Lux Turns 25

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:50:29 -0400

When he’s not grilling rocker Jon Bon Jovi, or tooling around Dubai with ruler Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft is often found chatting up the various characters at Café Luxembourg on West 70th Street.

“It’s always been my local,” said Mr. Kroft.

On Sept. 10, owner Lynn Wagenknecht’s longtime celebrity haunt celebrated its 25th anniversary with a bubbly, sliders-and-fries-stuffed party attended by such notable guests...

Pushed by Liberal Hawks, a Rumsfeldian Idea Returns

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:41:13 -0400

Eighteen months after former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld retreated from his post under heavy criticism for, among other things, mishandling the invasion of Iraq and legitimizing torture as an interrogation technique, some Washington insiders are revisiting his strategies and tactics.

Notably, resurrecting Rumsfeld's idea - a comprehensive plan to overhaul the military - hasn't been reintroduced into the public dialog by die-hard neo-conservatives. The project is being led...

Our Critic's Tip Sheet on Current Reading: Rummy Disses the Pentagon; Unreliable Narrators; and Psychedelic Living

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:11:34 -0400

The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America. This adversary is one of the world’s last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans. From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans and beyond. With brutal consistency, it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defense of the...

Rumsfeld Book Deal Will 'Add to People's Information About These Times'

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:43:42 -0400

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld secured a book deal yesterday from Sentinel, the conservative publishing imprint of Penguin Books USA. Sentinel publisher Adrian Zackheim acquired the book via Washington lawyer Robert Barnett, who represents many of Washington's most powerful figures when they decide to write books and often gets them enormous, seven-figure advances.

Mr. Barnett did not conduct an auction for the book, according to someone familiar with the negotiations who would not speak...

At Jack McWethy Memorial, the Ghost of a Famous Grin

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 12:18:15 -0500

WASHINGTON, D.C.—"Sometimes the end comes like a thief in the night," said Sam Donaldson.

Mr. Donaldson was standing on a stage at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., yesterday morning, quoting the Bible. Like the hundred or so mourners who had gathered in the large auditorium, Mr. Donaldson was struggling to make sense of the sudden recent death of his friend and former colleague, John "Jack" McWethy.

A week earlier, on Feb. 6, Mr. McWethy had been...

Sightseer Reacts to Rove News

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 16:03:02 -0400

Here is Chad Shepard, a 23-year-old Maryland resident who was sightseeing in DC today with some friends, and who was pleased with the news of Karl Rove's imminent departure. "I'm happy," he said. "I was waiting for this day. His ideas did not benefit most citizens. It seems like everyday somebody is resigning." Referring to the trio of Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove and George W. Bush, he said, "We just need one more to...

Newt’s Free-Speech Ideas Fail the Laugh Test

Sun, 24 Dec 2006 19:00:00 -0500

The flimsy philosophizing of Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House and aspiring Presidential candidate, isn’t designed to bear any great weight. For many years, he has been willing to say anything that would win him the public attention and political power he still craves. Yet in the mainstream media and among Republicans, his intellectual pretensions are often taken seriously—and when he promotes authoritarian “solutions” to national problems, that must be taken seriously too. ...

After Midterms, Times Gets in Leak Stream

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 19:00:00 -0500

What makes a leaker leak? Who cares? “It’s less important what the motivation of the individual is if you get the actual document,” said Michael R. Gordon, The New York Times’ chief military correspondent. Enough with reading the tea leaves. After six thirsty years in Washington, D.C., The Times suddenly finds its teapot overflowing. So Mr. Gordon had documents: Twice in five days, he had been on the front page with classified memos—the first...

A Belated Dose of Truth About Iraq

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 19:00:00 -0500

If nothing else can be said for Robert Gates—the clever climber nominated to serve as Secretary of Defense—he seems to have learned that the appearance of honesty is preferable to blatant attempts at deception. Asked at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee whether he believes that the United States is “winning” the war in Iraq, Mr. Gates said no. That forthright admission contrasted sharply with the response of President George W....

Rumsfeld Story

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 07:45:00 -0500

With the Senate and House under Democratic control, and the defense department in new hands, some members of Congress are apparently now comfortable enough to tell their scariest Donald Rumsfeld stories. Here's one from Jerry Nadler: "During the one month official war with Iraq, you know, before Mission Accomplished, when the tanks were rolling across the dessert, we had a secret briefing with Rumsfeld. And I went to him at the end of the briefing and...

The Morning Read: November 9, 2006

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 03:53:35 -0500

As Hillary Clinton traveled on a statewide thank you tour, she appeared to add a necessary (if highly incremental) adjustment " to her standard line about just focusing on the current election: "All I'm thinking now is how excited I am that we've had a great election for the country and for our state and for our city." Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack is running for president. New York's congressional delegation gained some major clout after Tuesday's...

The Morning Read: August 21, 2006

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 05:00:00 -0400

The new, independent Joe Lieberman says he wants Donald Rumsfeld to quit as Secretary of Defense. Jeanine Pirro is accused of doing much the same thing that led the NJ attorney general to resign by using her position to argue a traffic ticket. John Faso says "no one" is leading the state Republican Party right now. Jonathan Hicks rounds up the battle for the 57th assembly district in Brooklyn. A Sun editorial says Hillary Clinton has "has...

The Morning Read: August 21, 2006

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 04:33:05 -0400

Jonathan Hicks introduces readers to the battle for the 57th assembly district in Brooklyn. Joe Lieberman calls for the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld on Face the Nation, saying: "With all respect to Don Rumsfeld, who has done a grueling job for six years, we would benefit from new leadership to work with our military in Iraq." John Faso tells the New York Sun the state Republican Party is "suffering from a leadership void." A...

Rumsfeld Lies, Press Takes a Nap

Sun, 13 Aug 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Once upon a time, it was considered news when a senior official in Washington blatantly lied to a Senate Committee. No more. If the Bush administration has proven anything, it is that the Big Lie is just as effective today as it was 60 years ago. One of the most egregious examples of this occurred a few days ago when Senator Hillary Clinton challenged Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld over his constant optimism about...

Bush Hears Voices, But Does He Listen?

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 20:00:00 -0400

“I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation,” said the President of the United States, sounding as peevish as a toddler banging his silver spoon on the high chair. “But I’m the decider, and I decide what’s best. And what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the Secretary of Defense.”

By reminding everybody that he is “the decider,” George W. Bush no doubt...

Critics Assail Rumsfeld, But What Is Their Plan?

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 20:00:00 -0400

So The New York Times has found six generals who want Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign. The peace party often makes a show of embracing the martial virtues, though they should be careful what they ask for. People often suspect a ruse, and the uniformed front men that come forward are not necessarily top quality. In 1864, at the climax of the Civil War, the Democrats tried to unseat Abraham Lincoln with...

Bush Hears Voices, But Does He Listen?

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Looking Ahead?

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 11:02:58 -0400

John Kerry sounded like a candidate this morning when he spoke to the National Action Network annual convention breakfast via phone (he had been scheduled to speak in person, but like New York's Senators, was stuck in DC due to the debate on the immigration reform). On Katrina: Hurricane Katrina showed us with Mr. Brown, you know Mr. Brown--Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job, Brown. Well let me tell you, Mr....

Beyond the N.S.A. Scoop: A Tale of Intelligence Fiascos

Sun, 22 Jan 2006 19:00:00 -0500

James Risen’s book hits the shelves in the wake of his bombshell New York Times story about the Bush administration’s secret and probably illegal surveillance operations. But State of War is much more than an elaboration of that scoop: It’s a cornucopia of scoops about all sorts of intelligence deceptions, mishaps and scandals-in-waiting, each more hair-raising than the one before, almost none of which have appeared in The Times or anyplace else.

Maybe the...

Beyond the N.S.A. Scoop: A Tale of Intelligence Fiascos

Sun, 22 Jan 2006 19:00:00 -0500

James Risen’s book hits the shelves in the wake of his bombshell New York Times story about the Bush administration’s secret and probably illegal surveillance operations. But State of War is much more than an elaboration of that scoop: It’s a cornucopia of scoops about all sorts of intelligence deceptions, mishaps and scandals-in-waiting, each more hair-raising than the one before, almost none of which have appeared in The Times or anyplace else. Maybe the...

Predictions for 2006: Read 'Em and Weep

Sun, 08 Jan 2006 19:00:00 -0500

Long-range predictions by meteorologists at this weather station for the New Year are gloomy (bearing in mind, of course, that there is no money in good news).

With that in mind, here’s the forecast for 2006: January: In his State of the Nation speech, President George W. Bush says that the Iraqi war is kinda like a long horse race, but that the thoroughbred named U.S.A. is leading down the home stretch and heading to...

Predictions for 2006: Read ’Em and Weep

Sun, 08 Jan 2006 19:00:00 -0500

Long-range predictions by meteorologists at this weather station for the New Year are gloomy (bearing in mind, of course, that there is no money in good news). With that in mind, here’s the forecast for 2006: January: In his State of the Nation speech, President George W. Bush says that the Iraqi war is kinda like a long horse race, but that the thoroughbred named U.S.A. is leading down the home stretch and heading...

All I Want This Christmas: An Exit Strategy!

Sun, 18 Dec 2005 19:00:00 -0500

And so we’ve come to the final days of 2005.

The tips have been distributed; the holiday cards have been dispatched. And all that’s left is that flurry of last-minute shopping for the most difficult gifts—the gifts for whom it’s not just “the thought” that counts. So what, then, is the perfect gift this year? What’s the thing that everyone wants, and everyone covets, yet all but a few have managed to...

All I Want This Christmas: An Exit Strategy!

Sun, 18 Dec 2005 19:00:00 -0500

And so we’ve come to the final days of 2005. The tips have been distributed; the holiday cards have been dispatched. And all that’s left is that flurry of last-minute shopping for the most difficult gifts—the gifts for whom it’s not just “the thought” that counts. So what, then, is the perfect gift this year? What’s the thing that everyone wants, and everyone covets, yet all but a few have managed to attain? Is...

Rumsfeld Guns for the Press While the Lincoln Group Spins

Sun, 11 Dec 2005 19:00:00 -0500

Give this much to the Lincoln Group, the “strategic communications” outfit that’s been busted for placing agreeable propaganda in the Iraqi press at the behest of the U.S. Department of Defense: It’s not exactly shy about self-justification. “We counter the lies, intimidation, and pure evil of terror with factual stories that highlight the heroism and sacrifice of the Iraqi people and their struggle for freedom and security,” group spokeswoman Laurie Adler breathed heavily last...

Rumsfeld Guns for the Press While the Lincoln Group Spins

Sun, 11 Dec 2005 19:00:00 -0500

Armies of the Right

Sun, 18 Sep 2005 20:00:00 -0400

I have no moral standing. That was my problem at the America Supports You Freedom Walk on Sept. 11. Also my shoes. They were a problem too, or part of the same problem. The notepad was O.K. It was stuffed into my back pocket, under the shirttail of my polo shirt, which was under the shirttail of my official America Supports You Freedom Walk T-shirt I was not planning to pull it out. The...

Epistemology And Its First World Discontents

Thu, 11 Aug 2005 06:14:00 -0400

The plight of impoverished Africans is all the rage with film people lately. Again! At The Constant Gardener premiere, Rachel Weisz arrived in a backless teal gown by Narcisco Rodriguez and Cartier earrings. She was followed closely by a handler who let the young journos know that they were to ask only about the movie "or else we're moving on." So no one dared to ask about Ms. Weisz's upcoming nuptials. But they did ask about...

American Credibility Flushed Down the Toilet

Sun, 05 Jun 2005 20:00:00 -0400

The puzzle is the size and flush capacity of the toilets in what Amnesty International calls "the gulag of our time," or what our media refers to as the "facility" at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. As everybody knows, a gossip-column item in Newsweek magazine reported that a Koran had somehow been disposed of down the crapper in front of horrified Muslim eyes, inciting riots and demonstrations on the other side of the world.

The Right Honorable...

Bush Hides the Truth About Terror, Torture

Sun, 01 May 2005 20:00:00 -0400

Responding to the most serious questions we confront as a nation, the Bush administration can routinely be expected to hide, obfuscate and deceive. If credible information indicates that high-ranking government and military officials permitted and even encouraged the horrific abuse of foreign detainees, the administration assures us that a few bad soldiers can be blamed. If honest statistics indicate that the "war on terror" is achieving less than advertised, the administration buries the report...

A Son Marches Home, A Father Wonders Why

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 19:00:00 -0500

My son has returned from the war. After a year in Iraq, he's come back to his wife and the rest of us unharmed in body. I don't know about his spirit. Soldiers must see and do things which may leave, if invisible, terrible scars. I hope that hasn't happened to him.

My son is a real soldier. He is not some general's adjutant. He was not in Emerald City, as the Green Zone is...

Death Squads Invite Murder in Our Name

Sun, 16 Jan 2005 19:00:00 -0500

Our faltering effort to crush the Iraqi insurgency is now taking a turn that recalls the worst episodes in American foreign policy. In recent weeks, the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. have disgorged further proof of the routine use of torture to extract information from prisoners. Now Pentagon planners are reportedly mulling a "Salvadoran option"-the bureaucratic euphemism for death squads-to put down the rebellion in Iraq.

Evidently this scheme is the latest brainstorm of the "liberators"...

DVD’s, Videos, TiVo, Downloadables

Sun, 17 Oct 2004 20:00:00 -0400

How to Win Hearts and Minds

The Battle of Algiers DVD costs $49.95, and given the brilliance of the film and the wealth of the DVD’s extras, one might say that’s cheap. Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo’s masterful 1965 movie, a documentary-like reimagining of the 1956 conflict between France’s 10th Paratroops Division and the Algerian liberation organization Front de Libération Nationale, miraculously filmed in the city of Algiers just three years after the French gave up...

The Rummy Club

Sun, 16 May 2004 20:00:00 -0400

BAGHDAD-Nobody in Iraq gives a tinker's damn whether or not the U.S. Secretary of Defense gets fired.

That is, nobody that I've come across in the attempt to gauge the depth and diameter of the crater that has been blown into the Iraqi mind by those images out of Abu Ghraib. So far, this attempt could hardly be more modest; just a couple of days' worth of asking random folks what they think of psychotic...

Global Buzzword Search-And-Delete: Rove at the Keyboard

Sun, 16 May 2004 20:00:00 -0400

Memo from: Karl Rove

To: POTUS cc: Cheney, Ashcroft, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld, Ridge, Mueller and Tenet (bcc: Hannity, Novak, Sinclair Broadcasting) To All Concerned Parties: In light of recent events, I feel the need to clarify some of the language and "descriptive phraseology" we've been using in regard to the war on terrorism and our ongoing efforts in Iraq. These are not to be interpreted as "non-negotiable edicts" (whose violation will result...

Four 9/11 Moms Watch Rumsfeld And Grumble

Sun, 28 Mar 2004 19:00:00 -0500

In the predawn hours of Tuesday, March 23, Kristen Breitweiser, Lorie Van Auken, Mindy Kleinberg and Patty Casazza dropped off their collective seven fatherless children with grandmothers and climbed into Ms. Breitweiser's S.U.V. for the race down Garden State Parkway to the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill. It's a journey that they could now make blindfolded-but this one was different. On March 23, testimony was to be heard by the commission investigating...

Dennis Miller's Bad Air Day: "I Lapsed Into Rude"

Sun, 28 Mar 2004 19:00:00 -0500

WED. March 24

1 On Wednesday, March 17, CNBC talk-show host Dennis Miller tried out a bewildering new trick on his audience: He stopped hosting the show while on the air. Others have done it. Usually it follows long years on the air, after great tension and exhaustion, as when Jack Paar walked off, or great frustration, as when Regis Philbin quit on the air with his boss, Joey Bishop. But Mr. Miller has only...

Fearsome Office Warriors: Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice and Co.

Sun, 07 Mar 2004 19:00:00 -0500

Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet , by James Mann. Viking, 426 pages, $25.95.

Kafka's Amerika begins with the Statue of Liberty holding a giant sword instead of a light to the world. How fitting that James Mann's profile of the Bush foreign-policy team begins with a nearly identical image. High on a hill outside Birmingham, a huge 56-foot statue of Vulcan (the Roman god of fire) glowers at...

Expert on Matters Military Gets Chummy with Rummy

Sun, 02 Nov 2003 19:00:00 -0500

Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda , by John Keegan. Alfred A. Knopf, 387 pages, $30.

Sir John Keegan is the British chap that the History Channel brings into your living room to explain war. Which war doesn't matter: the First World War, the Second, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf, Crimean, Seven Years, Thirty Years, Hundred Years, Spanish-American, French-and-Indian, Russo-Japanese, Napoleonic, Punic, Peloponnesian, of the Roses-you name it, he's the expert. With...

Rummy the Genius Forgot About Nukes

Sun, 11 May 2003 20:00:00 -0400

The genius of Donald Rumsfeld and his deputies in the Defense Department is currently among the mainstream media's favorite themes. According to the conventional viewpoint, their military strategy in Iraq was practically flawless, their political instincts are masterful, and their philosophical grounding is deep. (Some of them have even read Leo Strauss.) They're just undeniably brilliant.

To Americans who read and worry about the most recent developments in Iraq, this ceaseless chorus of praise for...

Handicapping Military Is Order of the Day; Maureen Is Feasting

Sun, 06 Apr 2003 20:00:00 -0400

During the heady opening days, the coalition military effort in Iraq inspired a thunderous scramble among military officers, theorists and analysts to claim authorship of the planning and underlying strategic doctrine. But the clamor heard this week in military, academic and journalistic circles was very different: It was more like the panic of a collection of pikers who've seen their horse break speedily from the gate only to stumble at the first turn. The...

Heeere's … Rummy!

Sun, 06 Apr 2003 20:00:00 -0400

When Saturday Night Live 's mimicker in chief Darrell Hammond began working on an impression of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the first thing he did was grab John Ford's 1940 movie version of The Grapes of Wrath , starring Henry Fonda as John Steinbeck's agitated Depression-era itinerant, Tom Joad.

"Rumsfeld reminded me a little bit of Tom Joad," Mr. Hammond said the other day. "There was a fair percentage of Henry Fonda's accent and...

SNL 's Darryl Hammond Looks at Rumsfeld, Sees Tom Joad; the 'Thousand-Yard Stare'; 'Oh My Goodness!' Explodes Battle Architect

Sun, 06 Apr 2003 20:00:00 -0400

"Rumsfeld reminded me a little bit of Tom Joad," Mr. Hammond said the other day. "There was a fair percentage of Henry Fonda's accent and...

Network Anchor-Geezers In an Info-Sandstorm Reassert Importance

Sun, 30 Mar 2003 19:00:00 -0500

It's an avalanche from the front.

Every day, television packages and ships home hundreds of stories from hundreds of war correspondents in Iraq. There are reports of American heroes. There are reports of American casualties. There are angry Iraqis. There are happy Iraqis. The other day on CNN, there was a Kurdish child named...Dick Cheney. With each new report comes a new, contradictory theory. We are conquering. We are not conquering. We are not...

Strategic Bombing Brings Up Quandary Of Military Ethics

Sun, 16 Mar 2003 19:00:00 -0500

During these last days, or perhaps hours, of our preparation for war with whatever Iraqi forces elect to fight for Saddam Hussein, there is a vital battle of priorities still being waged within the American defense establishment. It is not a battle over the usual Pentagon concerns-bureaucratic turf and budgetary appropriations-but rather over something that most Americans may not even recognize as a consideration: military ethics.

The term refers to the study not only of...

Bush's Conflict: Military Methods At War For Iraq

Sun, 02 Mar 2003 19:00:00 -0500

Military history is not a discipline congenial to one-way-or-the-other interpretations or for-us-or-against-us philosophies; and the examination of the Iraq crisis in this column will be derived, above all, from military history. Intellectual nonpartisanship is not popular with ideologues on either side of the current war debate, even those of the supposedly more outreaching left: Among the many ironies of this historical moment is the manner in which the antiwar protesters have slavishly parroted President...

Credulous Woodward A Fly on N.S.C. Wall In New Bush Book

Sun, 01 Dec 2002 19:00:00 -0500

Bush at War, by Bob Woodward. Simon & Schuster, 376 pages, $28.

Bob Woodward's new book, Bush at War, is a great read: For those who yearn to be a fly on the wall during National Security Council meetings, the book is full of detailed accounts of internal debates on the war in Afghanistan; and for those who can't get enough of the power struggle between Secretary of State Colin Powell on one side...

Credulous Woodward A Fly on N.S.C. Wall In New Bush Book

Sun, 01 Dec 2002 19:00:00 -0500

Bush at War, by Bob Woodward. Simon & Schuster, 376 pages, $28.

It's Back to the Bush Age!

Sun, 07 Jan 2001 19:00:00 -0500

Back in July, when George W. Bush–the very personification of pep and sunshine–appointed Dick Cheney as his running mate, we should have known that the Age of Exuberance was at an end.

Yes, the Nasdaq was off its March high of 5,000 and tech stocks had come in for a nice shave, but it was surely a mere correction, a short and much-needed wringing out of some of our excesses. Growth was still booming; we...