Bin Rummy
Well, he’s gone. At last.
I heard about it from my Dad who texted with ‘did Rumsfeld jump or pushed?’. I sent back ‘almost certainly pushed’ although, serendipitously and satisfyingly, the predictive text on my Nokia first gave me ‘purged’ instead of ‘pushed’.
Rumsfeld becomes the Republican’s Charles Clarke – fired less for his failings in his job and more as the fall guy for a poor show at the polls.
Just what’s changed since October 25, other than the mid-term results, when George Bush said of Rumsfeld ‘I’m satisfied with how he’s done all his jobs’ and called him ‘a smart, tough, capable administrator’, isn’t clear.
Ten days later, however, there’s been a change of heart and things in Iraq are deemed now to be ‘not working well enough, fast enough’ according to the President.
So, it’s farewell as Donald retires, left only with his lucrative job offers and his memories. I’ll leave you with my favourite piece of his ‘poetry‘. It’s a sliver of wistful Americana that almost makes you forget the mountains of corpses and the oceans of misery, the imperial arrogance and the gritted-teeth malevolence. Almost.
Glass Box
You know, it’s the old glass box at theâ€â€
At the gas station,
Where you’re using those little things
Trying to pick up the prize,
And you can’t find it.
It’sâ€â€
And it’s all these arms are going down in there,
And so you keep dropping it
And picking it up again and moving it,
Butâ€â€
Some of you are probably too young to remember thoseâ€â€
Those glass boxes,
Butâ€â€
But they used to have them
At all the gas stations
When I was a kid.
Update: Flying Rodent reminisces:
“Destroy our credibility as a freedom-loving nation!”, they cried from Oregon to Florida, and he did. They howled, “Let the blood of the foreigner stain the front pages of the world’s media, and to hell with them!”, and Rummy was on hand to give the country what it demanded.
Update updated: Steven Poole is his customary dry self:
‘Steps down’ as a euphemism for ‘resigns’ or ‘is fired’ is part of the metaphor of verticality in talk about power. You reach ‘high office’ and then ’step down’ from it afterwards, if you manage not to ‘fall’ or get ‘pushed’. (I suppose the ‘corridors of power’ must be steeply sloped.)
Posted on November 8th, 2006 at 8:44pm under US Politics
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• 7 Comments |
Was the end of Rummy a known known or a known unknown?
All the great Rumsfeldisms are here (courtesy of Matt Buck).
Here’s how I’ll always remember the old bugger.
Amazing…. Saddam is sentenced to death on Sunday, Rumsfeld is executed on Wednesday… Blair crucified on Friday maybe?
Hopes, in vain (probably), Rumsfeld faces the judges in the Hague.
Although I’m wary of extending this metaphor, I thought that a bbc article outlining some of the democratic victories throughout the USA read like an account of Ragnarok, or some Heroic Fantasy novel, describing sundry malevolent beasties being slain by valiant warriors.
Hmmm, the image of Nancy Pelosi as an oiled-up avenging Valkyrie with not a lot on, in the Red Sonja mould, is not a pleasing one.
However, the image of Rick Santorum, with an axe in his head, is.
Predictive text. Urghhh. Who wants a machine telling you what it wants you to write?
His replacement Gates is already familiar with taking over where Rummy left off: he spent the 80s making sure Saddam had all the arms he wanted, once Don had welcomed SH back into the fold.