Where’s Rumsfeld? Riding TV from the front lines to hiatus

Remember when Donald H. Rumsfeld had a TV show?

It was called “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” and it starred Rumsfeld as the secretary of Defense and architect of a swift and decisive victory that would spread democracy across the Middle East.

The show aired five days a week and featured Rumsfeld, all lock-jawed and squinty-eyed, giving news briefings that were alternately officious and bizarre but rarely failed to display his trademark devilish wit.

I miss that show. It was canceled, I think, some months ago, quietly, around the time the word “insurgent” became part of the national lexicon.

Tonight you can relive Rumsfeld’s magical ride remaking the military and steamrolling dissent among high-ranking Pentagon officials in “Rumsfeld’s War,” airing at 9 on PBS as part of the “Frontline” investigative journalism series.

Much of the 90 minutes, put together with five Washington Post reporters who have covered Rumsfeld’s remaking of the Pentagon, outlines how the secretary of Defense squeezed out veteran military figures and effectively hoarded foreign policy for those in the Bush White House who, even before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, wanted a different kind of U.S. military, one that would respond to perceived threats preemptively. Rumsfeld, the show says, also pushed for transforming the military into a leaner, faster responding, high-tech machine.

It was 9/11, though, and the subsequent military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq that gave Rumsfeld his other stage -- the news conference.

There was the infamous “Henny Penny” speech, delivered April 11, 2003, three weeks after airstrikes began in Iraq. “I picked up a newspaper today, and I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I read eight headlines that talked about ‘Chaos! Violence! Unrest!’ And it was just, ‘Henny Penny, the sky is falling.’ ”

“By the summer of 2003,” the program’s narrator says, “Secretary Rumsfeld’s press conferences were cut back.”

In the network TV business, this is called putting a show on hiatus in the hopes that by the time you cancel it nobody notices.

And so it is that Rumsfeld, with an election looming and the skies over Baghdad not quite so bright, isn’t easy to find on your TV screen.

“Rumsfeld’s War” doesn’t give you a satisfying explanation for that. In the meantime, you might tune into the nightly news, where nowadays instead of the Rumsfeld Hour you get scenes from an occupation.

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‘Frontline -- Rumsfeld’s War’

Where: KCET (PBS)

When: 9 tonight

Rating: Not rated

Executive producer David Fanning. Washington Post reporters Dan Balz, Dana Priest, Tom Ricks, Bob Woodward and Robin Wright.