"Visit with your predecessors from previous Administrations. They know the ropes and can help you see around some corners. Try to make original mistakes, rather than needlessly repeating theirs"
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Rumsfeld’s advice is managerial on the surface and quietly ruthless underneath: power is a machine, and the only sin worse than error is amateurism. “Visit with your predecessors” isn’t nostalgia; it’s an instruction to treat government as an institutional memory bank. The line flatters continuity while assuming churn. Administrations change, but the problems don’t, and neither do the hidden tripwires.
The phrasing does a neat bit of Washington doublespeak. “They know the ropes” frames experience as technical competence, not ideology. It’s a subtle rebuke to the romantic fantasy of the outsider who can “fix” a bureaucracy by force of will. “See around some corners” nods to the real currency of governance: anticipation. Mistakes aren’t just misjudgments; they’re failures of foresight, the inability to imagine second- and third-order effects.
Then comes the punch: “Try to make original mistakes.” It’s funny in a dry, fatalistic way because it concedes what most leaders refuse to say out loud: you will screw up. The goal isn’t purity; it’s novelty. Originality becomes a warped form of excellence, a way of preserving ego while admitting fallibility. The kicker, “rather than needlessly repeating theirs,” turns history into a cost-saving measure, the government equivalent of not paying tuition twice.
Context matters. Coming from a politician associated with high-stakes national security decisions, the line reads as both wisdom and self-indictment: a system that learns slowly, and leaders who often relearn the same lesson at maximum price.
The phrasing does a neat bit of Washington doublespeak. “They know the ropes” frames experience as technical competence, not ideology. It’s a subtle rebuke to the romantic fantasy of the outsider who can “fix” a bureaucracy by force of will. “See around some corners” nods to the real currency of governance: anticipation. Mistakes aren’t just misjudgments; they’re failures of foresight, the inability to imagine second- and third-order effects.
Then comes the punch: “Try to make original mistakes.” It’s funny in a dry, fatalistic way because it concedes what most leaders refuse to say out loud: you will screw up. The goal isn’t purity; it’s novelty. Originality becomes a warped form of excellence, a way of preserving ego while admitting fallibility. The kicker, “rather than needlessly repeating theirs,” turns history into a cost-saving measure, the government equivalent of not paying tuition twice.
Context matters. Coming from a politician associated with high-stakes national security decisions, the line reads as both wisdom and self-indictment: a system that learns slowly, and leaders who often relearn the same lesson at maximum price.
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning from Mistakes |
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