Rumsfeld's Four Questions

In an interesting article of the same title on slate.com, Fred Kaplan examines

...the spectacle of our leaders wrapping themselves in [9/11's] legacy as if it were some tattered shroud that sanctifies their own catastrophic mistakes and demonizes all their critics.

Most interesting to me was Kaplan's response to Rumsfeld's fourth rhetorical question:

"And can we truly afford to return to the destructive view that America-not the enemy-is the real source of the world's trouble?" This is another red herring. Few Americans, and virtually no contenders in American politics, hold this view. However, a lot of people in other countries-including countries that are, or should be, our allies-do hold this view. Look at the Pew Research Center's most recent "global attitudes survey," released this past June. In only four of the 15 nations surveyed (Britain, India, Japan, and Nigeria) did a majority of citizens have a favorable view of the United States. In six countries (Spain, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, and Jordan), Iran had a higher rating than did the United States. (In one more, Russia, the two countries' ratings were tied.) Most remarkable, in all but one country (Germany), America's presence in Iraq was seen as a bigger danger to world peace than either Iran or North Korea. These views are widespread-and, by the way, they've grown steadily more prominent in the past few years-not because of "the media" or "blame-America-first" liberals, nor because Iran and North Korea have more skillful propagandists (or, if they do, it's time for Condoleezza Rice to hire a better public-diplomacy staff). No, a country's global image is usually formed not by what its leaders say but rather by what they do. If the war on terror is "a battle for the future of civilization," as Cheney claimed in his speech (or even if it's merely a serious struggle), and if the United States needs allies to wage it, the president and his team would better spend their time luring allies than beating up on journalists and Democrats. If Rumsfeld is serious, he should revisit the questions he asked back in October 2003. Those-not the cleverly phrased debaters' points he muttered this past Monday-really are some "central questions of our time."

Via Boing Boing, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann got all riled up about Rumsfeld's speech and gave a sharp rebuttal. Video and transcript/text here and here.