Wherever the United States government contemplated a wrong turn, Rumsfeld was there first with his hard smile—squinting, mocking the cautious, shoving his country deeper into a hole. His fatal judgment was equaled only by his absolute self-assurance. He lacked the courage to doubt himself. He lacked the wisdom to change his mind.

At the Atlantic, George Packer writes a tidy eulogy for a terrible person and argues that he was actually worse than Robert McNamara, which is saying something.