contrapositive

Rumsfeld Redux One more thought about Donald Rumsfeld's recent appearance on Face the Nation.

When you look at the clip [windows media player] closely, one thing that's striking about it is how utterly unprepared Rumsfeld is to be confronted with his own past statements.

He gets a bit caustic, attributing to "mythology" the perception that the Iraq threat was hyped. And he slams Bob Schieffer, calling him a "critic" for suggesting that the threat was ever portrayed as "immediate."

It's as if he genuinely had no idea that he (or other administration officials) ever used any misleading language at all.

I don't want to read too much into this. But it seems safe to say, certainly, that Rumsfeld hasn't been pulling his hair out over questions about his credibility.

It doesn't surprise me that he would be ornery and combative in discussing questions about WMD intelligence. But the total lack of reflection is a bit scary.