Rumsfeld plays the part, but can’t live up to McNamara

By Dolores Hazen
Howlin’ Leroy Eenk Staff

WASHINGTON, DC April, 15 — The deafening calls for his resignation as U.S. Secretary of Defense don’t bother him.

But after spending a few intimate moments with Donald Rumsfeld, it’s obvious that he carries in his heart a sadness greater than all the dismembered babies in Iraq.

Like many former Secretaries of Defense — except for one glaring exception — Rumsfeld is a victim of alopecia, also known as male pattern baldness.

On Friday night, after Joyce went to bed and he put a few scotches away, he finds an old Chuck Norris show on late night cable. His favorite is Lone Wolf McQuade. Most chapters in the Missing in Action saga are good too. But tonight, he’s willing to settle for a Walker, Texas Ranger rerun.

“What a hairline,” he mutters. “He never even needed a part.”

He can’t hide it, his true passion: parts, the watershed divide that is chosen by a man, or given to him as a boy. It indicates not only how the man combs his hair, but reveals more about his temperament and intelligence than any other fashion statement, Rumsfeld believes.

With his hair, he lost his part. It was a strong part, a masculine part, one that said to the world: “I’ve been combing it this way since I was an Eagle Scout.”

He still has a lot of hair for a 73-year-old man, and some generous women may claim that he still has a part. But Rumsfeld isn’t one for soft answers, gray areas.

“I was proud of it, but never satisfied,” he says, his voice trailing off.

It will never return, and he is haunted by the fact that in this life, and in this stint as DefSec, he will never have the chance to exceed, or even meet, the greatest, most devastatingly perfect part in the history of the cabinet chair he now holds: Robert McNamara.

In fact, Rumsfeld knows that even in the heyday of his part, it paled in comparison to the white line that ran across the left side of the eighth secretary of defense’s skull.

“We used to wonder how he got the line so straight,’ Rumsfeld says. “And when you think about it, he cheats, because his part begins near the center of his forehead, rather than shooting off his temple.”

He laughs to himself and sips his whiskey. “Now I’m just making excuses.”

No matter how much death and destruction he causes with his arrogance and incompetence, he will never kill as many as McNamara.

He will also never have his part.

“I’m from the party of Lincoln,” he says with a harumpf during a commercial break featuring geriatric hygiene products. “And I resent everything the Democrats have ever done to this country and its military traditions. But, damn it, that was one brilliant part.”

It’s no consolation that McNamara has apologized for his actions while presiding over the Vietnam War, or that most of the hair has fallen from his octogenarian scalp.

“He may cry and bitch about the war,” Rumsfeld says, clinking the ice in his tumbler. “But you’ll notice he’s never uttered a mea culpa for his hairstyle. And even though he can count the hairs still on his head, he counts them starting with the remains of his part. That damn part.”

Even in the twilight of his life, McNamara’s part endures, and because of it, sometimes Rumsfeld can’t sleep at night. Like tonight.

“It will be some consolation when that whiny bastard finally croaks,” Rumsfeld says at the next commercial break. “But really, it won’t matter. He beat me. He killed more and his part put mine to shame.”

The first time Rumsfeld held the position of secretary of defense, he was the youngest in history, and his part served as a stern warning to the forces of communism.

The second time, he was oldest in history.

“I thought if I just had one more chance, I could show the world what a part really looks like, you know?” He is drunk, the show has ended, and his leaning over the arm of his chair.

He starts to finish his thought, but shakes his head and squints at the credits rolling down the screen.

McNamara estimated all Southeast Asian deaths at about 3.2 million, not including the 58,226 U.S. military personnel who were killed in action or classified as missing in action.

In Iraq, the number is probably around 100,000, and that’s including most everybody, kids, journalists, soldiers, et al.

“He had a chance,” Rumsfeld says, flipping to a soft-core pornographic film on Showtime.

“It wasn’t a bad part. It just wasn’t a McNamara part.”