Quote

One of your tasks is to separate the 'personal' from the 'substantive.' The two can become confused, especially if someone rubs the President wrong.

Donald Rumsfeld

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Donald Rumsfeld
Age: 88 †
Born: 1932
Born: July 9
Died: 2021
Died: June 29
Author
Businessperson
Diplomat
Former U.S. Secretary Of Defense
Military Officer
Politician
Chicago
Illinois
Donald Henry Rumsfeld
Personal
Wrong
President
Rubs
Two
Substantive
Someone
Confused
Become
Separate
Tasks
Especially

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Let your family, staff, and friends know that you're still the same person, despite all the publicity and notoriety that accompanies your position.
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Control your own time. Don't let it be done for you. If you are working off the in-box that is fed you, you are probably working on the priority of others.
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... something under $50 billion for the cost. How much of that would be the U.S. burden, and how much would be other countries, is an open question.
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Listening to both sides does not necessarily bring about a correct judgment.
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After the German abstention at the UN, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle commented that Germany doesn't always have to stand on the side of its traditional allies. Berlin can look for new partners all over the world.
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Our task, your task... is to try to connect the dots before something happens. People say, 'Well, where's the smoking gun?' Well, we don't want to see a smoking gun from a weapon of mass destruction.
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Well, so be it. Nothing's perfect in life, so you have an election that's not quite perfect. Is it better than not having an election? You bet.
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Have a deputy and develop a successor. Don't be consumed by the job or you'll risk losing your balance. Keep your mooring lines to the outside world - family, friends, neighbors, people out of government, and people who may not agree with you.
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Do you have any regrets? Of course I do.
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If a person is determined to fight to the death, then they may very well have that opportunity.
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It is easier to get into something than to get out of it.
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Don't divide the world into 'them' and 'us.' Avoid infatuation with or resentment of the press, the Congress, rivals, or opponents. Accept them as facts. They have their jobs and you have yours.
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Success tends to go not to the person who is error-free, because he also tends to be risk-averse. Rather it goes to the person who recognizes that life is pretty much a percentage business. It isn't making mistakes that's critical it's correcting them and getting on with the principal task.
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There's another way to phrase that and that is that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. It is basically saying the same thing in a different way. Simply because you do not have evidence that something does exist does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist.
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The reality is that [Barack] Obama has some 15 countries in the current Libya coalition. President Bush put together close to 50 countries for the Afghan coalition, some 40 countries for the Iraqi coalition, more than 90 countries for the Proliferation Security Initiative and over 90 countries in the Global War on Terror.
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If you develop rules, never have more than ten.
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It is unknowable how long that conflict [the war in Iraq] will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.
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Reduce the layers of management. They put distance between the top of an organization and the customers.
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When cutting staff at the Pentagon, don't eliminate the thin layer that assures civilian control.
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We do know that the Iraqi regime has chemical and biological weapons. His regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons - including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas. His regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of biological weapons—including anthrax and botulism toxin, and possibly smallpox.
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