What the...

So, today is the birthday of Donald Rumsfeld (and I hope it's a miserable day). In the Writer's Almanac they have this to say:

In 2003, he published Rumsfeld's Rules: Wisdom for the Good Life, a list of guidelines for his colleagues that he'd gathered over the years. It includes advice such as, "It is easier to get into something than to get out of it."

Okay. Setting aside that "It's easier to stay out than get out" is better advice (Mark Twain, of course), why didn't he listen to his own freakin' guidance? Instead he was saying stuff like this:

* Sep. 18, 2002, to Jim Lehrer on PBS's The News Hour: "The military leaders and the combatant commanders and the services and I have all met repeatedly; we have a force sizing construct and a strategy that enables the United States of America to engage in two major theater conflicts near simultaneously to win decisively in one and to occupy the country to swiftly defeat in the other case and hold; and to simultaneously provide for homeland defense and a series of lesser contingencies such as Bosnia or Kosovo."

* Sep. 19, 2002 to the Senate Armed Services Commitee: "There are a number of terrorist states pursuing weapons of mass destruction - Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, just to name a few - but no terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people than the regime of Saddam Hussein and Iraq."

* Nov. 14, 2002, on Infinity CBS Radio: "I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today will last five days, five weeks or five months, but it won't last any longer than that."

* Feb. 7, 2003, to U.S. troops in Aviano, Italy: "It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."

* Mar. 30, 2003, on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos: "Oh, goodness, you know, I've never -- we've never had a timetable. We've always said it could be days, weeks, or months and we don't know. And I don't think you need a timetable. What you really need to know is it's going to end and it's going to end with the Iraqi people liberated and that regime will be gone.

Now, you know I could keep on going, but ... the point is made.

If only he'd have listened to himself.