In The New Republic, Colin Powell is essentially branded a traitor for his statesmanship:
‘ “You’re not secretary of state,” Dick Cheney admonished Colin Powell during the run-up to the Gulf war. “…So stick to military matters.”
Cheney spoke too soon. Freed from the constraints of military professionalism, such as they were, Secretary of State Powell is today busily forfeiting America’s capacity to respond effectively to the attacks of September 11. Indeed, he’s gone out of his way to contradict just about every principle President Bush has enunciated for the battle ahead. Will the United States employ “every necessary weapon of war” to defeat terror? Probably not. “It’s a war that will use legal means, financial weapons,” Powell told Qatari television the week after the attack. Will the United States, as the president insists, eliminate the distinction between terrorists and the states that give them haven? Not really, given that Powell has been wooing several such states into America’s coalition. In other words, having portrayed the threat as malignant, Bush is now being urged toward equivocal action.’
And the Sunday Times of London portrays “Donald Rumsfeld: the hawk with his finger on the trigger: Technically, Rumsfeld is outranked by Vice-President Dick Cheney and Colin Powell, the secretary of state. But Cheney is a mere protégé of 69-year-old Rummy, and Powell looks easy meat compared to the opposition he’s seen off before.
In his first incarnation as defence secretary, in the Ford administration 25 years ago, Rumsfeld completely outfoxed the extremely foxy Henry Kissinger. The two later made it up, but as Kissinger ruefully noted in his memoirs: “Rumsfeld afforded me a close-up look at a special Washington phenomenon: the skilled full-time politician-bureaucrat in whom ambition, ability and substance fuse seamlessly.” In less complimentary vein, Kissinger is supposed to have added: “Of all the despots that I’ve had to deal with, none was more ruthless than Donald Rumsfeld.”
And let’s not forget the exemplary comportment in times of war of lesser dignitaries. For example, U.S. Rep. J.C. Watts, (R.- Okla.) — “who supports the aviation security bill scheduled for a vote this week — violated security measures outside Will Rogers World Airport on Sept. 28, aides confirmed.
(Watts) was so angry about receiving a parking ticket outside the airport that he shoved the ticket under an Oklahoma City police officer’s badge, two of his aides told The Oklahoman.”
