An odd day, historically.
Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense under Gerald Ford from 1975 to 1977, and again under George W. Bush, died at age 88.
Rumsfeld had a long career in government, including a stint in Congress. His association with the military began in 1954 when he was a Naval aviator. Under President Gerald Ford he would oversea the dramatic destruction of the Cambodian navy due to the Mayaguez Incident, demonstrating that the Untied States was not as weak communist forces in Southeast Asia might imagine. And yet, in spite of serving in the Navy, and that example, and as Secretary of Defense twice, it was his gross overestimation of the effectiveness of modern technology that lead to the under deployment of US forces early in Afghanistan, a result which lead to a protracted guerilla war, and perhaps to the situation in that country which exists today.
And on the same day the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned Bill Cosby's conviction.
Cosby went from the heights of fame to the height of infamy when a series of allegations against him lead to convictions for sex crimes. He's being released not because he was found to be innocent, so to speak, but because his prosecutor failed to honor an agreement with a prior prosecutor.
As for the allegations, we can leave them as they are, but we will note that Cosby had the odd status of having been viewed nearly universally as a conservative family man while simultaneously being one of the individuals frequently found at parties at uber creep Hugh Hefner's mansion. That should have raised some red flags, although he certainly wasn't the only one who shared this status.
Perhaps that should in some ways be his legacy. What he was accused of was gross creepy sexual behavior, in a nation that has come to celebrate creepy sexual behavior. If that didn't match his image of being the ideal patriarch, perhaps that signifies that in our modern society we've come to tolerate conduct in the patriarchs and matriarchs that's creepy. We may be holding him to a higher standard than we hold ourselves, none of which argues for a restoration of his reputation, but a condemnation of our own.
Suffice it to say, both men have obtained reputations that will remain defined by events surrounding them late in life, and which stand in contrast, to some degree, with reputations obtained earlier in life.
