Rumsfeld biographer Bradley Graham — I’m like 15 pages into his book, as I think we’re having him over for FDL Book Club shortly — takes to the Washington Post opinion pages to ask whether we can expect a McNamara-esque apology for Iraq from Rumsfeld. The ex-defense secretary is in more of a Nixonian mood, seeing dishonest persecutors everywhere, their double-standards accruing only to add to their discredit:

 Part of the formula, Rumsfeld said, involved pillorying him along with Bush and Cheney but sparing Powell and Condoleezza Rice, who was national security adviser before taking over at the State Department. As an example, he noted accusations that Bush and Cheney lied about Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction in making the case for the invasion. "They never say Colin Powell lied," Rumsfeld declared. "They don’t say Condi lied."

I’m here to help, Mr. Rumsfeld. If I say so myself, few journalists have obsessively documented the ways in which Condoleezza Rice deceived the 9/11 Commission. How I wish the TNR archives kept all my stuff about a document called NSPD-9 intact! You’d be able to read my stuff about how Rice misrepresented Richard Clarke’s pre-9/11 anti-al-Qaeda plan and the Bush administration’s pre-9/11 plan as two different plans when they were, in fact, the same thing. I’m confident you can find all my stuff on this through Nexis, but if you can’t, here I am  talking to Megan Carpentier and making the simple declarative statement you seem to want to hear:

SPENCER: I can’t wait until a document called NSPD-9 gets declassified, so we can see for all time that she lied to the 9/11 Commission and tried to destroy Richard Clarke’s character for his crime of pointing out how she dithered while al-Qaeda got ready to attack.

Not about Iraq, sure, but if you’d like: Rice misrepresented to the public the imminence of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear-weapons program during the "we don’t want the smoking gun to take the shape of a mushroom cloud" episode. Happy? And if you want some criticism directed at Powell, check out Michael Steinberger’s classic 2004 takedown for the American Prospect.

See what I’ve done for you? I’ve cleared the decks for you to own up to your failures in Iraq! I see you turned 77 on July 9. Happy birthday! It’s not too late for you to be a man.