Obituary thread of notable or obscure folk: Donald Rumsfeld, American politician, government official, and businessman

[dessa_dangerous 13,181]

Since even before the forum switch, you can't do some things to the first post in a thread.  Like, you can't remove it from the rest of the thread, and you can't merge it with other posts.  The first post belongs to the thread and can't be removed from it.  Keeping this thread alive and editable would mean manually clicking on each individual post for 92 pages (can't even "select all") and splitting them into a new thread. 

[dessa_dangerous 13,181]

OK, I dug an old advert out of the trash and merged them.  Someone try now to edit the topic!  @JG52?

[fraufruit 37,343]

I did it!

 

Actually, you did it. Thanks!

[dessa_dangerous 13,181]

*whew!*

[fraufruit 37,343]

You earned your money today. 

[kiplette 7,734]

Very sad that poor old Insert died. He was a dude.

[john g. 34,715]

[john g. 34,715]

Just wondering- if I died tomorrow - would the software be up to date enough to mention my name?😂

Or would it require a death certificate in Greek?

( Don’t know the Greek terminology for “ obscure folk)!!

Or would this thread be merged with “ refused to pay the Rundfunkbeitrag?”

😂

Either way, the BIGGIE would be Keith Richards- maybe.. one day!😂

 

 

 

[Lisa Rusbridge 433]

Olympia Dukakis, stage, film and television actress, died on May 1, 2021 at age 89 in New York City.  She won an Academy role for Moonstruck (a fantastic film!) in 1987.  

[whooosy daisy!  I see from the title edits that Olympia Dukakis already was added to the list.]

 

Tawney Kitaen, 1980s actress and music video performer (the article said “vixen”), died May 7, 2021 at age 59 in Newport Beach, California.

[pappnase 1,630]

Eric Carle, author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar has died aged 91. My kids loved that book when they were young and I enjoyed reading it to them many many times.

 

 

[kiplette 7,734]

Oh.

 

That's very sad. His books are so evocative with that painstaking hand-painted layered tissue paper artwork...

[MUinEU 116]

On 5/27/2021, 6:21:25, pappnase said:

Eric Carle, author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar has died aged 91. My kids loved that book when they were young and I enjoyed reading it to them many many times.

 

 

I still remember having that read to me way way back and then reading it myself. 

The book is in a box at my parents place I think. 

[LukeSkywalker 6,691]

Gavin MacLeod (90) passed away. He played Captain Stubing in The Love Boat (1977-86). Great opening tune: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m_wFEB4Oxlo

[JG52 634]

Ned Beatty (83) died of natural causes in his sleep.

 

https://variety.com/2021/film/news/ned-beatty-dead-dies-deliverance-network-actor-1234995509/

[katheliz 16,915]

Sorry to hear this. He never played top banana, but he never phoned in his performance.

[RedMidge 6,341]

19 hours ago, JG52 said:

Ned Beatty (83) died of natural causes in his sleep.

 

https://variety.com/2021/film/news/ned-beatty-dead-dies-deliverance-network-actor-1234995509/

He was one of that group of steady, supportive roles.  RIP

[RedMidge 6,341]

RIP Jeanne Lamon. Violinist and Musical Director of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. Cancer at 71years.

-Amazing to hear and watch her with her colleagues. 

[hooperski 28,847]

 

Was he Trump's speech writer?  Knowns and unknowns.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/06/30/donald-rumsfelds-most-famous-and-infamous-quotes/7811766002/

[katheliz 16,915]

Rumsfeld was a loyal Republican functionary, though he did say in 2011 that the time had come to admit homosexuals to serve in the US military. He was both the youngest and the second-oldest man to serve as Secretary of Defense.

[AlexTr 17,849]

How Rumsfeld Deserves to Be Remembered

 

Quote

Rumsfeld was the worst secretary of defense in American history. Being newly dead shouldn’t spare him this distinction. He was worse than the closest contender, Robert McNamara, and that is not a competition to judge lightly. McNamara’s folly was that of a whole generation of Cold Warriors who believed that Indochina was a vital front in the struggle against communism. His growing realization that the Vietnam War was an unwinnable waste made him more insightful than some of his peers; his decision to keep this realization from the American public made him an unforgivable coward. But Rumsfeld was the chief advocate of every disaster in the years after September 11. Wherever the United States government contemplated a wrong turn, Rumsfeld was there first with his hard smile—squinting, mocking the cautious, shoving his country deeper into a hole. His fatal judgment was equaled only by his absolute self-assurance. He lacked the courage to doubt himself. He lacked the wisdom to change his mind.

Rumsfeld was working in his office on the morning that a hijacked jet flew into the Pentagon. During the first minutes of terror, he displayed bravery and leadership. But within a few hours, he was already entertaining catastrophic ideas, according to notes taken by an aide: “best info fast. Judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] @ same time. Not only UBL [Osama bin Laden].” And later: “Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.” These fragments convey the whole of Rumsfeld: his decisiveness, his aggression, his faith in hard power, his contempt for procedure. In the end, it didn’t matter what the intelligence said. September 11 was a test of American will and a chance to show it.

Rumsfeld started being wrong within hours of the attacks and never stopped. He argued that the attacks proved the need for the missile-defense shield that he’d long advocated. He thought that the American war in Afghanistan meant the end of the Taliban. He thought that the new Afghan government didn’t need the U.S. to stick around for security and support. He thought that the United States should stiff the United Nations, brush off allies, and go it alone. He insisted that al-Qaeda couldn’t operate without a strongman like Saddam. He thought that all the intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was wrong, except the dire reports that he’d ordered up himself. He reserved his greatest confidence for intelligence obtained through torture. He thought that the State Department and the CIA were full of timorous, ignorant bureaucrats. He thought that America could win wars with computerized weaponry and awesome displays of force.

He believed in regime change but not in nation building, and he thought that a few tens of thousands of troops would be enough to win in Iraq. He thought that the quick overthrow of Saddam’s regime meant mission accomplished. He responded to the looting of Baghdad by saying “Freedom’s untidy,” as if the chaos was just a giddy display of democracy—as if it would not devastate Iraq and become America’s problem, too. He believed that Iraq should be led by a corrupt London banker with a history of deceiving the U.S. government. He faxed pages from a biography of Che Guevara to a U.S. Army officer in the region to prove that the growing Iraqi resistance did not meet the definition of an insurgency. He dismissed the insurgents as “dead-enders” and humiliated a top general who dared to call them by their true name. He insisted on keeping the number of U.S. troops in Iraq so low that much of the country soon fell to the insurgency. He focused his best effort on winning bureaucratic wars in Washington.