An article for Becky
Becky asked for an article, so here goes. This would fit later when learning about the Executive Branch and the president's advisors but it was in the news today and very interesting. Plus it is a good example for several areas that we will be studying later in the year.
Should He Stay?
Feel free to respond with comments or questions. Try not to let your feelings about the war in Iraq or Donald Rumsfeld influence what you blog. There will be a time and place for those comments to come forth.
DT
posted by erdecker @ 1:55 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
In response to the article "Should He Stay" I disagree with the authors overall belief that Rumsfeld is the "root of all problems in the Iraq war. Machavelli states in his book The Prince that rulers/presidents should have good ministers and advisors who can give you advice when you ask for it. In truth I think that it is more the fault of President Bush for not replacing Rumsfeld than the fault of Rumsfeld and his advisors.
-Kirsten Kranz
The thing that stood out to me the most about this article was the language that Rumsfeld used.
"It's entirely possible there were too many at some point and too few at some point, because no one's perfect," he said in another interview.
"In retrospect, I have not seen or heard anything from the other opiners that suggests to me that they have any reason to believe that they were right and we were wrong. Nor can I prove we were right and they were wrong. The only thing I can say is they seem to have a lot more certainty than my assessment of the facts would permit me to have."
Rumsfeld uses many qualifiers in his speaking in order to keep himself out of conflict, for if someone tells him "You admit yourself we had distorted numbers of troops in Iraq", he can say "No, I did not say that. I said it was possible." To me, it sounds like he is attempting to avoid having blame placed on him.
Combining the elements of the Kirsten and Dannie's posts. it seems to me that the usage of qualifiers fits in almost seamlessly with what Machiavelli states about those power.
Though Rumsfield himself is not the "ruler," I personally don't belive it would be much of a stretch to claim he's an extension of the ruler; or at least one in power who Machiavelli had in mind when writing the Prince. It seems to me that his usage of qualifiers fits well with Machiavelli's belief in giving words lightly and maintaining the pretense of benevolence. By inserting the qualifiers he does, Rumsfield does very well in the Machiavellian notion of giving one's word lightly. This is of course similar to Mr. Decker's initial example with Senator Clinton and her usage of a qualifier.
-Eric
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