Stephen Pollard says that Rummy is his hero. And Rummy just drives Europeans nuts.

What makes people’s reaction so bizarre is that, whatever the attributes for which most of us look in a politician, Donald Rumsfeld has them all. He always says exactly what he means. He tells it as he sees it. He has decades of experience in the real world. He is witty. He is imaginative. He thinks for himself. He inspires loyalty. Even better, he is prepared to stand up for his beliefs and treat the smug superiority of the trimmers, appeasers and Euro-elites with the contempt that they deserve. What more could one want in a politician?

Ah yes, I have just remembered one other thing that you would want in a politician: he is right. Always.

And that is the root of it, of course. The real reason why Rummy inspires such contempt among bien pensant types is that they cannot bear the thought that he is right. They loathe him because the that fact he is right boomerangs back at them all their self-righteous, haughty, “Americans are so coarse” complacent beliefs.

Donald Rumsfeld is the living, breathing proof that they are wrong.