Arrogant to the End

I was just watching the BBC's coverage of the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld as U.S. Secretary of Defense.  I cannot describe my relief over this sign that the Bush Administration is, however feebly and however late, responding to reality.

I heard Mr. Rumsfeld's parting words.  He is unrepentantly arrogant to the end.  His comments informed all of us who oppose his precious "first war of the twenty-first century" that we misunderstand it -- as one might misunderstand a gifted child, I suppose.  How can we fail to understand that this war in Iraq was conceived because of this administration's fatal hubris and willingness to lie to the world about the existence of weapons and the nonexistent connection between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001?  How can we fail to understand bloodshed for no reason?  But this quality is inherent in arrogance: to suppose that those who disagree, if not disloyal, are, at the very least, stupid.  But this is the chief and mortal flaw of the arrogant person: the unwillingness to see that he does not have a monopoly on wisdom -- the resistance to the fact that others perceive truth without its being "managed" or "spun."  Someone once said that the truth will set us free.  There is freedom in acceding to the fact that truth is accessible to all human minds and hearts.  But the arrogant one denies this.  And so he condemns himself to self-inflicted deception.