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Character on Parade: Rummy declined honor as âPerson of the Yearâ
This was mentioned on WBAL (Baltimore talk radio) today.It isnât often that someone turns down an offer to be Time magazineâs âPerson of the Year,â especially when that someone is as important as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. But thatâs what Rumsfeld did when he learned that Time was planning to honor him in its year-end issue last month. Rumsfeld told guests at a holiday party that in this year of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military deserved the honor more than he did, which is why Army Sgts. Marquette Whiteside and Ronald Buxton and Spc. Billie Grimes turned up on Timeâs Dec. 29 cover. Time Managing Editor James Kelly appears to confirm Rumseldâs self-effacing act, if only obliquely, in an editorâs note recounting that when he and several other editors âmet with Rumsfeld at the Pentagon in November to talk about the war, [the Defense Secretary] made the pitch, unsolicited by us, that the Person of the Year should be the American soldier. (Or as he put it, the American volunteer.)â Kelly also noted that Washington bureau chief Michael Duffy and senior correspondent Mark Thompson were working on a profile of Rumsfeld in preparation for the issue, but set it aside to help two fellow Time journalists who were injured in Iraq. (The profile appeared in the Person of the Year issue.) The lasting image I will always have of this man is when I saw the news clip of him carrying the wounded on a gurney after the attack on the Pentagon. Posted by: Dragon Fly 2004-01-07 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=23939 |