I'm reading this guy for the first time, and think it's terribly unfair that a veteran fiction writer should also be able to write so clearly on politics. There was only one line I found wanting, which is a pretty darned good percentage.
They serve in government, not because they’re as ambitious or skilled at infighting as Rumsfeld, but because they are so doggone smart that even people who don’t like them know that the country would be ill-served if they were not in key positions.
My experience with powerful people is that they are vain and egotistical (like Rumsfeld, whom like the author, I love as Sec of Def, but wouldn't last a day working for), and will not keep a really smart person around if they don't like him, unless they are forced to by the really smart person's patron.
OSC is swell. Hatrack River is one of my wife's favorite stories.
I think people have underestimated Rumsfeld. His masterful ability to handle the press as well as his peers, coupled with his demonstrated ability, in two different administrations to handle that mangy mongrel of politics - the U.S. Congress - lead me to believe that Rumsfeld might make a dandy POTUS. Far more likely to prevent that from happening is the fact that, by his own admission, he doesn't necessarily want the job.
Americans have gotten so used to jelly-spined public figures, someone uncompromising like Rumsfeld scares the fooey out of them. Needless to say, he is one of my favorite figures in American Politics.