Word: rumsfelds
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...Although public opinion of him now was as negative as it had ever been, he seemed largely unrattled. Instead, he held fast to an abiding belief that he had done what he thought best. "Don Rumsfeld is a throwback to a breed of public man who judge themselves not relative to their peers but relative to the standard they have set for themselves, a standard closely equated to the public good," Steve Cambone remarked...
...Rumsfeld has tended, even in retrospect, to write off much of the criticism of his style as a function of the mission he was asked to do. "Change is hard" has remained a frequent refrain of his. Chosen to lead the Defense Department as the agent of change, Rumsfeld said he expected that he would come under attack. "People in uniform resisted, and people in civilian clothes resisted; the Congress resisted," he recounted in an interview. "They don't call it the Iron Triangle for nothing, between the permanent bureaucracy and the defense contractors and the Congress. They're permanent...
...fact, Rumsfeld has continued to relish his image as a no-nonsense reformer. Coming across a description of himself as someone who dragged the Defense Department into the twenty-first century "with no bedside manner," Rumsfeld said he liked the phrase, joking that it would make a good title for a book...
...Told that even some senior officers who dealt closely with him found him difficult, Rumsfeld said it was the work itself that was difficult, and he defended his own manner as nothing the officers shouldn't have been able to tolerate. "The idea that guys with three and four stars on their shoulders can't take tough questions - well, then, they shouldn't have three or four stars on their shoulders...
...Rumsfeld has ascribed much of the negative perception of him and the Bush administration to distorted media coverage. "The intellectual dishonesty on the part of the press is serious," he asserted. He groused about "a strong incentive to be negative and dramatic" that had infused much of the coverage. "It's a formula that works. It gets Pulitzers; it gets promotions; it gets name identification on the front page above the fold...