Esquire's "The Sound and the Fury (This Month, Extra Fury!)"

AUGUST ISSUE, PAGE 54

Vitriolic? Derisive? Let's call the tremendous response to July's 10 Men feature s passionate. Yeah, that makes us feel better.

We're not sure which comments in the 10 Men issue upset readers more: Donald Rumsfeld's on Iraq ("Old Man in a Hurry," by Thomas P.M. Barnett), a Guantanamo-based military chaplain's on war and faith ("The Gospel of Gitmo," by Tom Junod), or Val Kilmer's on how to Method-act your way to combat-experience ("Crazy Things Seem Normal Ö" by Chuck Klosterman).

THE MOST POSITIVE LETTER WE RECEIVED RELATED TO DONALD RUMSFELD'S INCLUSION IN OUR 10 MEN ISSUE

When I saw Rumsfeld on your cover, I was ready to send a letter canceling my subscription. Then I had the good fortune and great pleasure of reading your profile of him and nine other fascinating men-and I think they are among the best profiles I have read in any magazine in years.

BYRON REIMUS, Yardley, Pa.

THE SECOND THROUGH FIFTH MOST POSITIVE LETTERS



Rumsfeld is responsible for the deaths of more than a hundred thousand Iraqis and more than seventeen hundred American soldiers. Rhetoric aside, Esquire has celebrated a mass murderer.

NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST, Los Angeles, Calif.

I was, to say the least, disappointed by your inclusion of Donald Rumsfeld in the July issue. This is a man who, at best, answers questions posed by reporters and even National Guard members in a cavalier and dismissive style; at worst, he lies to the American public in a manner exemplifying Orwellian newspeak.

MATT McSORLEY, Bloomington, Ind.

Rumsfeld is a famed bureaucratic infighter, so it should not be surprising that, with the disastrous results in Iraq, he has executed a classic bureaucratic sidestep and hoodwinked your interviewer, Thomas P.M. Barnett, into believing that he was a mere "technician" and that the policy blame belongs with [former deputy secretary of defense] Paul Wolfowitz and [undersecretary] Douglas Feith. Put the blame where it belongs: with the arrogant triumvirate of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush.

WILLIAM CARTER, Medford, Oreg.

As public broadcasting goes, so does Esquire-to the far Right. Please cancel my subscription. I do not wish to support in any way a magazine that flacks for Donald Rumsfeld or the next generation of Bushes. Nuts to you!

MARY ELLEN CAREW, Washington, D.C.

CATHARTIC LETTER OF THE MONTH

F- Howard Stern. F- Donald Rumsfeld. F- Newt Gingrich. F- Hugh Hefner. F- Richard Nixon. F- Michael Jackson. F- Jason Alexander. F- Snoop Dogg. F- Kevin Federline. F- Dr. Phil. F- You.

JOHN HIEB, Lancaster, Pa.

COMMENTARY: It always amazes me how nasty the letters are that Esquire receives on my articles. Of course, most of the anger here wasn't directed at my effort so much as simply blasting the magazine for the selection (and I am to blame for that, in part, by making it possible). I do take exception, naturally, to the "hoodwinked" or "flacks" statements. I wanted to write up Rumsfeld in the way I saw him in history for the transformation process he has unleashed, not simply replicate the hundreds of articles that blame him for Iraq. My choice? Yes. Don't like it? Fine. But criticize the choice without implying that the only way the man can get a profile that doesn't crucify him is for the journalist to be fooled. That's not an argument under any conditions, and it's especially weak when you're talking someone who worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for two years.