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Call me irresponsible

Somebody Else's Problem

By Rick Horowitz

"Well, goodness gracious -- will you get a load of these numbers!"

His voice carried, as he knew it would. Had he been a soft-spoken man, his voice would still have filled the hushed and elegant Members Lounge at the Old Secretaries Club. No one had ever accused Donald Rumsfeld of being a soft-spoken man.

"Goodness gracious!" he said once again, just to make sure. And he shook his head in wonderment. A crowd was beginning to gather, as he knew it would.

"What numbers are those, Don?"

He ignored the question, deep in contemplation.

"What numbers are those, Don?"

He looked up, surprised -- or so his expression suggested -- to see so many people suddenly standing all around him, so many others looking in his direction. Why, it was as if they'd been privy to his innermost thoughts! He poked an index finger at the morning paper spread out before him on the newly polished mahogany table.

"This Pentagon assessment," he replied at last. "These numbers are just..."

He handed the paper to the nearest pair of hands; a clutch of gray-haired gentlemen quickly closed around it, scanning the headlines and searching for details.

"'Attacks in Iraq at Record Level,'" one muttered.

"'Weekly Average of 960 Assaults,'" said another.

"That's up -- let's see here -- that's up 22 percent!" said a third. "Don, that's terrible!"

"No offense," the first man quickly interjected, because Donald Rumsfeld was legendarily prickly, and even here at the Old Secretaries Club, where they were the old-timers and he the newcomer, none of them wanted to offend Donald Rumsfeld. The bad side of Donald Rumsfeld was a place many of them had visited in the past, a place each of them had vowed never to visit again.

Yet Rumsfeld showed not a hint of anger. He took another sip of coffee, dabbed his lips with a nearby napkin.

"Bob Gates," he said, and nothing more.

Whereupon the gray-haired gentlemen considered Robert Gates, the newly appointed secretary of defense, and felt a great rush of sympathy for him. Bob Gates was taking on an almost-impossible task, they understood, at a time of great peril, and with so much riding on the outcome. Would he -- would anyone -- be able to clean up the mess that the Iraq adventure had become? How could he possibly --

But now Rumsfeld was speaking again.

"The president," he said, "had such hopes for Gates."

The room went silent again. For fully ten seconds, the only sound was the rustling of one perfectly-tailored trouser leg against its partner, as the gray-haired gentlemen, wise heads every one, shuffled their feet and considered the implications. Finally, one of the men spoke.

"What do you mean 'had,' Don?"

Rumsfeld looked the man square in the eye, then pointed again at the newspaper.

"Well, look at that assessment -- things are spinning out of control! Heavens to Betsy, wasn't Gates supposed to make things better?"

"But Don, this data's from -- "

"But Don, he's only been -- "

Rumsfeld waved away their objections.

"My last day was Friday, right?"

"But how -- "

"And Gates was sworn in on Monday, right? That assessment came out on Monday afternoon, right? After he was sworn in."

"But how could -- "

"You never saw numbers like this when I was secretary."

They couldn't argue with him there. They couldn't argue with him at all.