Word: rumsfeldism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Three and a half years ago, as the U.S. prepared for war with Iraq, Condoleezza Rice went to President Bush with a complaint: Donald Rumsfeld wouldn't return her calls. At the time, Rumsfeld was the Administration's swaggering alpha male, a global celebrity whom even Bush called a "matinee idol"; Rice was the overwhelmed National Security Adviser, struggling to make herself heard above the din of colliding war-cabinet egos. "I know you won't talk to Condi," Bush told Rumsfeld, according to Bob Woodward's book State of Denial. "But you've got to talk...
...That exchange provided hints of the feuds to come. Though both maintained the appearance of collegiality, Rice and Rumsfeld loathed each other. Throughout Woodward's book they are depicted squabbling over everything from how to handle detainees at Guantanamo Bay to whether the U.S. should guard oil pipelines in Iraq. As the war dragged on, their roles were reversed: By the end of the book it is Rumsfeld who is left to doodle in his notebook while Rice briefs reporters during a joint appearance in Baghdad. "Don's Don," Rice says, when Frank Miller, a top aide, calls Rumsfeld...
...Rumsfeld's departure means Rice has outlasted nearly all of her principal rivals within the Bush Administration; among current officials, only Vice President Dick Cheney can match Rice's influence over the President and his foreign policy. But every silver lining has a cloud. Having bemoaned, circumvented and ultimately usurped Rumsfeld's control over the U.S.'s failing Iraq policy, Rice is now the one responsible for figuring out how to clean...
...country's future: Sunni Baathist rebels and Shi'ite Islamists, Iranian spooks and Arab strongmen. That, at least, is one option currently under consideration by the Iraq Study Group, the panel headed by former Secretary of State James Baker, whom Rice prodded Bush to appoint in part to clip Rumsfeld's wings...
...Since it came just minutes after Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi called for new civilian leadership at the Pentagon, the announcement of Rumsfeld's firing might be seen as an act of political expediency, a sacrificial offering to the newly powerful Democrats on Capitol Hill. And it was. But the truly expedient thing to do - the move that might actually have helped Bush and congressional Republicans when it mattered, before Election Day - would have been to fire Rumsfeld last week, last month or last year...