Oh sure, he's a bespectacled government bureaucrat pushing 70. But the secretary of defense has a quality that many women adore.
He's as self-assured as a bull in a cow pasture.
The whole thing is a little demeaning, it seems to me. Rumsfeld never set out to be anything but what he is, a no-nonsense administrater who has a job to do, and didn't let the '90s change his view of the right way to do things. The only reason anyone considers him sexy is because Clinton gave people the idea that his power was sexy. (It sure wasn't that flabby, pasty flesh of his). No Clinton, no talk of someone like Rumsfeld being "sexy". To coin a phrase, "let's move on", and get the policy debate away from such silly talk, which diminishes the importance of the matters at hand.
Clinton NEVER gave sensible people the idea that his power was sexy. He just showed them that power can be sleazy!
Rumsfeld did not seek to have anyone think that he is sexy. WE decided that he was.
It's NOT demeaning to think someone is sexy and to say so!! To say that is to imply that we are incapable of having more than one thought at a time! We can be dead serious about politics - the war - and many other things and still think that Rummy is sexy!