Dana’s post took me down Memory Lane a little bit. It was 2003, and I was on the secretary of defense’s plane. My main purpose there was to interview him. But I also talked with his wife, Joyce Rumsfeld. Let me excerpt from a write-up:
Mrs. Rumsfeld is a bit of a media maven, and I ask whether she reads the New York Times. Yes, she says, “but faster than I used to.” She likes the Washington Post’s editorials, because they’re “thoughtful, worthwhile, and not knee-jerk.” And does she read Maureen Dowd? “Yes, I do.” And . . . ? “Well, she’s clearly a bright and talented person,” but her mission seems to be ridicule — artful ridicule, with little content or argument. The whole thing is soaked in cynicism. And “there is nothing I like less in a person than cynicism. I hope that [Dowd] is not cynical in the rest of her life. Because, to be cynical 100 percent of the time — that would be sad.”
Yeah. By the way, don’t you love that remark about reading the New York Times? “Yes, but faster than I used to.” Something tells me she reads it even faster now. Maybe it’s time — seven years on — for another interview.