“…Then neoconservative co-founder Midge Decter wrote a whole book about Donald Rumsfeld’s “manliness.” In her book, Decter concludes that Rumsfeld’s secret is “manliness” (italics hers), a quality that in her estimation has something to do with being a grandfather and something to do with prairies.

But, unfortunately for the reputation of her subject, the tone of the book is anything but manly. She blows him warm kisses (“He works standing up at a tall writing table, as if energy, or perhaps determination, might begin to leak away from too much sitting down”), and warmer ones (“this was the stuff—no other word would do—of glamour”), and even warmer ones (“Oh, Rumsfeld,” a friend coos, “I just love the man!”), until poor Rumsfeld begins to melt…”

-Alex Pareene, “Donald Rumsfeld, the media’s original weird political sex symbol”