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American Morning

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld Tops in Washington

Aired November 30, 2001 - 09:51   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: He's served four presidents, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and now he is the secretary of defense for President George W. Bush. And after all these years of government service, maybe no one is more surprised than Donald Rumsfeld himself that his Pentagon briefings are now the hottest ticket in Washington.

Here is CNN's Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There is something about Donald Rumsfeld.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His tough and elegant treatment of the press has been just a casebook example of how to treat the press.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He thinks before he opens his mouth.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They call him the newest sex symbol.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: I have been waiting all day to do this.

MCINTYRE: Maybe it's his boyish enthusiasm. He can be as giddy as Luke Skywalker with a new lightsaber.

RUMSFELD: This is fantastic. I have got a laser pointer. Holy mackerel. It's close. I'll just keep it right in my hand here.

MCINTYRE: And he can just as easily display a gritty determination to root out terrorists.

RUMSFELD: One of the ways to do that is to drain the swamp they live in.

MCINTYRE: For whatever reason, Rumsfeld is riding a tsunami of popularity, seeming always to do and say the right things.

PAM HESS, UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL: We get calls, e-mails, faxes, people call up and say when is Secretary Rumsfeld briefing, and what time? It's become appointment television. The response is always the same. He is very straightforward, he is dead honest.

MCINTYRE: Rumsfeld ordered a crackdown on leaks and initially opposed daily briefings, but now he is earning rave reviews from the public for his plainspoken style, such as this defense of cluster bombs.

RUMSFELD: They are being used on frontline al Qaeda and Taliban troops to try to kill them -- is why we are using them, to be perfectly blunt.

MCINTYRE: Or his review of a front-page newspaper story.

RUMSFELD: It was a world-class thumb-sucker, with all respect to the "Post," mind you.

MCINTYRE: His deft handling of the press prompted a classic late night parody.

DARYL HAMMOND, ACTOR: Now, what kind of question is that?

WILL FARRELL, ACTOR: Thought provoking?

HAMMOND: No.

FARRELL: Incisive?

HAMMOND: No. Remember what I said before your question the other day?

FARRELL: That it was idiotic?

HAMMOND: And?

FARRELL: And that I'm an embarrassment both to myself and to my newspaper?

HAMMOND: That's right.

QUESTION: What do you think of your portrayal on "Saturday Night Live"?

RUMSFELD: When I want to discuss "Saturday Night Live," I'll bring it up.

MCINTYRE (on camera): In the weeks just before September 11, pundits were questioning whether Rumsfeld was really up to his job. "New York Times" columnist Maureen Dowd dubbed him Rip Van Rummy, suggesting he was woefully out of touch after 25 years away from government.

You don't hear that kind of talk here in the hallways any more. Whether or not he was a good secretary of defense, everybody seems to agree he has turned out to be a great secretary of war.

(voice-over): Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAFFERTY: So what's behind the elevation of Donald Rumsfeld to media star of America's new war?

Let's find out from Howard Kurtz. His is media critic for "The Washington Post," host of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES."

Howard, good to see you.

HOWARD KURTZ, MEDIA CRITIC, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Same here, Jack.

So what's up with this guy?

KURTZ: I think we are all so used to seeing these excruciatingly bland government briefers who say I have nothing for you on that at this time, or let me refer you to the president's remarks from last week. And here comes Rummy, and he's gruff, is no nonsense, and has as a certain dry wit. When he thinks a reporter has asked a stupid question, he blows off the reporter and doesn't make any bones about the fact that he's not going to suffer any journalistic fools gladly.

CAFFERTY: Here is the youngest secretary of Defense in the nation's history. In 1975, he became secretary of Defense serving President Gerald Ford. The country was just coming off of the Vietnam War, the attitudes about things like the military and government and governmental authority rather starkly different than they are today.

Contrast the two times a little bit, and then we've, in the news media, it's an apparent miscalculation of what this guy is all about. For that matter, the overwhelming support that America sudden has thrown behind its governmental institutions, behind things like war crime tribunals, and changes in the eavesdropping laws on the part of the Justice Department, the secrecy of the military and not allowing firsthand coverage of the war -- the public is fully in the government's corner on all this stuff, isn't it?

KURTZ: Right. Let me take the second part first. There was a Pew research poll just the other day in which 53 percent of those surveyed said they supported military censorship of the press. I, as a card-carrying journalist, think that is terrible, but in fact, even the Pentagon has said that journalists have not put out any stories that would jeopardize the safety of troops.

But at the same time, in that poll, 82 percent say administration officials are disclosing as much information about the war as they can; only 16 percent said they are hiding bad news.

As far as the differences with 1975, there was no cable in 1975, so Cabinet officers were more remote figures. That was held against Rumsfeld when he was nominated; the press portrayed him as retread from the Ford administration, a 69-year-old corporate executive who nobody thought would be the rock star of the Bush Cabinet.

But the fact is that through these briefings, carried live on all the cable networks, he has gone over the heads of the reporters and communicate directly to the American public. They like what they see. And the next thing you know, he is on "Saturday Night Live."

CAFFERTY: Some suggested he could hold these briefings without even the news media even being present.

KURTZ: Oh, no, no, that would be a big mistake, because you want reporters as foils. We're not that popular these days, so he needs somebody to stick it to.

CAFFERTY: He comes with his message, he delivers his message, and if the news media get in the way, he just works around them and goes ahead with whatever he intended to do to begin with, right?

KURTZ: Don Rumsfeld also doesn't pretend to know the answer when he doesn't. Are you any closer to finding Osama bin Laden. Well, we don't have him, he would say. He sticks to the message.

There is something about his personal that I think is appealing to a lot of viewers and sometimes frustrates journalists. But his approval ratings are probably a lot higher than theirs are.

CAFFERTY: Plain English tends to stand out when you are listening to government employees.

Howard, nice to have you with us. Thank you. Howard Kurtz, media critic for "The Washington Post" and host of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES."

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