Stephen Colbert had Donald Rumsfeld on The Late Show as a guest. Had it been the Colbert Report, I’m sure he would have savaged Rumsfeld like he did Bill Kristol ten years ago. But this is network TV, and Colbert to a certain degree is forced to conform. Sometimes, I worry he is in a straitjacket bound with golden handcuffs.
That is precisely why I tuned in to the show with a sense of dread. Was he going to play the polite host who ignores the elephant in the room? Was he going to make light banter and overlook the horrors this man dumped on us? Was he going to ignore all the dead and wounded left in the wake of this man’s arrogance?
I’m a cynical bastard, but even I could not believe that was really possible. This is a man who ended his presidential campaign by donating all of his Super PAC money ($700,000) to the Yellow Ribbon Foundation. This is a devout Catholic who brought the MusiCorps Wounded Warriors Band on to his show to sing Christmas Carols. This is a man who once said “where there is hypocrisy, that is where you will find me” when a fan asked him if the Colbert Report was just an act.
At first, my heart sank as they bantered and Rumsfeld promoted an app he has launched to raise money for wounded veterans. I was sickened by the thought that the man who stood in front of troops begging for armored up humvees and snidely told them “you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want to have” now had the gall to pretend a decade later that he was helping them. It reminded me of the disgust I had watching Wolfowitz work the crowd of wounded men and women at Fran O’Brian’s. The only way I can describe it is to compare it to the kind of skin crawling sensation you would get if your child’s rapist offered to read them a bed time story.
I’ll admit, my white hot anger about this has not dimmed over the years. I have yet to master the Dark Art of Forgetting. My despair was so intense I honestly couldn’t focus on what they were saying as they headed towards the break. All I saw was Rumsfeld’s insipid smile. He looked so charming and harmless. Like a grandpa who told you jokes. Of course, no one expects a war criminal to seem so human and affable. But that is what makes them so dangerous.
Reaching for the remote in disgust, I paused as Stephen asked Rumsfeld if he would stick around for a few questions after the break. Rumsfeld agreed. He couldn’t decline the invitation. It would be impolite. I paused. A little voice in the back of my head said “wait for it….”
No commercial break ever seemed so long to me as the one that followed. They came back and Stephen started in. He was polite, probing gently about how things had gone awry. At first Rumsfeld batted the questions away as he has so many times before. The usual answers to the usual questions.
After dismissing the mistakes as a consequence of limitations at the time, he had the gall to defend the invasion by citing the fact Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons. “That YOU GAVE HIM!” I yelled at the TV. Stephen didn’t respond. It was as if he had forgotten. He let Rumsfeld roll on. I began to think the strait jacket was just too tight for him to work his magic.
But I was wrong.
Stephen started to ask a question and prefaced it by saying
“There is this question that gets asked… that I don’t think is fair...”
Rumsfeld cut him off quickly and brusquely by saying
“Then why ask an unfair question?”
Stephen pivoted and said.
“No, I’m going to tell you why I think it’s unfair and I’m going to ask a different question. The question that is unfair is the one where people ask you ‘if you knew then what you know now would you make the same decision?’“
It’s easy to forget Colbert studied philosophy — until you listen to him argue. He followed the set up with an epistemological riff that was as dazzling to hear as Muhammad Ali’s footwork was to see. The speed of the delivery would have stopped anyone.
Here is where I began to see the brilliance that is Stephen Colbert.
He reminded Rumsfeld of his famous “known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns” statement. Rumsfeld, obviously thinking himself on safe ground, agreed with Stephen’s characterization of his famous comments. Rumsfeld must have thought the hard part was over. He was mistaken. Stephen dropped the hammer.
“There’s a fourth option that no one ever talks about. Those are the unknown knowns.”
This option was news to me, and I’m sure it was surprising to Rumsfeld. He looked stunned as Stephen defined the term.
“These are the things that we know and then we choose not to know them, or not let other people know we know.”
Rumsfeld became unusually quiet as the crowd began to realize where this was going. Seizing the initiative, Colbert point blank asked Donald Rumsfeld if there were things they knew that they did not share with the public because they would have undermined the case for war, specifically citing the recently revisited 2002 memo that would have, in fact, undermined the case for war. Rumsfeld resorted to the standard Gish Gallop tactics of deny, deflect, and distract.
It originated with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
He had released it on his Website.
It was just one of many things that were in front of the president. etc. etc.
Stephen stayed focused on the point that the basis for the war was nowhere near as solid as it was being presented. In fact, it was flawed.
“Were there things the administration, or you, knew that we didn’t learn about — out of the best possible intentions — which is, there were things that would undermine the case for a war you thought was necessary to save the United States?”
Rumsfeld took a final swing at that scathing indictment and that is where he hung himself. He again sought to spread the blame around, citing the NSA, the pentagon, etc. All the hands in the pie so no one person’s fingerprints can be put on the weapon. Then he said something stunning:
...it’s never certain. If it were… intellig… if it were a fact, then it wouldn’t be called intelligence!
Rumsfeld stopped right there and grinned with clear satisfaction. He thought he had solved this Gordian Knot. For a moment there was no response. The studio was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. For good reason.
Anyone who remembers Colin Powell’s testimony to the United Nations Security Council will recognize the sheer audacity of that statement. For those of you who missed that performance, the key quote was this:
My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.
Into that silence born of shock and awe, Colbert dropped the hammer with pitch perfect timing. With mock incredulity that would have made Claude Raines proud, he simply said:
WOW!
Rumsfeld looked like a deer caught in the headlights, frozen in mid-gesture as the audience’s laughter washed over them. Colbert followed quickly with surgical precision and stuck the knife in deep:
I think you answered my question.
The audience went wild. Rumsfeld, realizing the import of what he had said, was left stuttering and spluttering as if he was doing a poor imitation of Porky Pig.
This is the closest to a confession I think we will ever get from Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld and his co-conspirators will never stand trial in The Hague. But at least they will all die knowing the world knows what they did. I guess the best this cynic can hope for is they will suffer some form of Maori Justice and we can let shame be their punishment. One thing is certain, Rumsfeld’s epitaph was written last night on Stephen’s show.
Regardless of what happens to Donald Rumsfeld, it was heartening to see that Colbert has not abandoned his principles. It’s testimony to his brilliance that even in a straitjacket, Colbert can still get a hypocrite like Rumsfeld to punch himself in the face, proving the validity of at least one of Rumsfeld’s Rules (PDF):
Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up.