Exaggerating. Twisting.

Editor,

The problem with Rumsfeld is that he does not collaborate well with people who disagree with him. He is one of those tough-guys who insults you the first time he meets you, immediately grabbing for dominance by cornering you into a position of self-effacement.

He is also a guy who must always have a justification for whatever he has done, because he imposes what he does. What news it is that he engaged in an exchange with Ray McGovern, that he did not exclude him from the conversation, did not rely on his default tactic of intimidation. But in lieu of intimidation comes exaggeration, twisting, and grasping at straws, the same tactics he engages in whenever his dictates are questioned.

Anyone who has ever argued with a person who always has to be right recognizes how Rumsfeld changed the subject to what "the troops" believed, when what he believed was in question. This is twisting the truth. Then there is Zarqawi. Rumsfeld accused Saddam Hussein of collaborating with al Qaeda, as per a thoroughly discredited "meeting" in Prague. He did not argue for war on the basis of Zarqawi, but he exaggerated this guy's relevance in his exchange with Ray McGovern.

Exaggeration. Twisting. Are these lies? They are at least misleading, and they are intended to mislead.