I find it a little, um, odd, that
this interview between Rumsfeld and Woodward is the
#1 Google News search for "Bob Woodward."
At any rate, it isn't an auspicious beginning for our hero:
Secretary of Defense Interview with Bob Woodward - 20 Sept, 2003
(Interview with Bob Woodward of the Washington Post. Also participating was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Lawrence Di Rita)
Rumsfeld: Okay, a couple of things before we start. I am not great with dates or times and I don't have a lot of notes that can be helpful. The last time we met you asserted things, saying, "You did this or you said that," as though you knew what I did, and you were wrong a lot.
Q: I apologize for that. It was based on NSC notes and what other people said.
Rumsfeld: Other people, exactly. And your assumption is, if somebody says that to you, that it is correct. Therefore you assert it to me. That causes me a lot of problems, because then I have to stop and say, "No, that's not right." Almost everything you asked me was premised with an assertion that was either incomplete or wrong, and it changed the whole nature of it. You'd be better off with me if you asked those questions about the premises in the question you want to ask.
Q: My overall goal in this, because I have good relationship with President Bush and he wants me to do this, I think, as you know.
Rumsfeld: A couple of other things, I tend to ask a lot of questions of the people I work with and I tend to give very few orders. This place is so big and so complicated and there's so much that I don't know, that I probe and probe and probe and push and ask, "Well, why wasn't this done?" or "Shouldn't this be done?" but it's generally with a question mark at the end.
Q: I've found that in my research.
Rumsfeld: I've read a lot of stuff about me that doesn't sound that way and I think you ought to have that fact in your head.