Of all the immediate consequences of last week’s election, the firing of Donald Rumsfeld seems to have been the most popular. I have seen little beyond FoxWorld that suggests that Rummy is being mourned, although he may be missed. Lightning rods often are.

As has been his style, Rumsfeld went out with the same arrogance that marked his every move as Secretary of Defense. At times it appeared he knew that even in the matter of breathing, he had it right, while all the rest of us didn’t quite know how to do it properly.

So it wasn’t all that surprising when at the press briefing to introduce his successor, Rumsfeld had one more set of lessons for his inferiors. Being cute, as he often tried unsuccessfully to be, Rumsfeld paraphrased Winston Churchill: “It recalls to mind the statement by Winston Churchill, something to the effect that: I have benefited greatly from criticism, and at no time have I suffered a lack thereof.”

With his customary humility, Rumsfeld compared himself to Churchill. One suspects that Rummy would liken his own leadership to that of Sir Winston during World War II. The more appropriate historical comparison however is Gallipoli, when Churchill led his nation into one of the great military disasters in its history.

Then came the vintage Rumsfeld moment.

Referring to the Iraq debacle as “this little understood, unfamiliar war, the first war of the 21st century,” he said, “it was not well understood, it is complex for people to comprehend.” Yes, only Rummy and those wise insiders spawned by the Neo-Cons really have the brainpower, the knowledge and the wisdom to grasp the complexities. The poor simple-minded voters, the American people, just don’t have the intellectual necessities to deal with foreign policy.

Ah yes, Father Rummy knows best.

Only he sees the larger picture. This is why it is perfectly fine for those who took us down the road to war to freely dissemble for the purpose of manipulating the simple-minded public who lack the intellect to comprehend the complexities.

Is there something about being Defense Secretary in times of war, crisis, or the lead-up to war, which produces this arrogance? Or is it simply a commonplace of those in the foreign policy world, who always know the realities of the world better than the rest of us? There are strange echoes in Donald Rumsfeld of Robert McNamara. Both so willing to manipulate, both so willing to dissemble, both paragons of arrogance.

McNamara like Rumsfeld became the advocate of force as a means of spreading democracy to the world of dictators — one fighting communists, the other fighting terrorists. Like Rumsfeld, McNamara was certain that Americans were liberators and not imperialists. He too found himself steeped in corruption in the name of freedom. He too was able to fool himself and ignore the realities, because he knew better than all the rest of us, who couldn’t comprehend the complexities and didn’t understand the real threat facing America.

As Secretary of Defense, both men came to dominate their presidents and feed on their weaknesses. Both dominated the national security debate, silencing critics within the administration and ignoring generals in the field. Both undercut and ultimately silenced the Secretary of State, whom they dismissed as not tough enough for the difficult decisions ahead, unable to take the military options over the soft diplomatic positions.

In the presidencies of Kennedy, Johnson and Bush 43, the macho tendencies of American foreign policy so central during the Cold War asserted themselves through these two Secretaries of Defense. Both McNamara and Rumsfeld were described repeatedly by their contemporaries as brilliant. Both men possessed an ability to control bureaucracies, and both deftly molded and shaped the “facts” to suit their visions.

With Rumsfeld’s exit this past week, given a push by the American people, he, like McNamara, survived long enough to see dreams of the American imperium go up in smoke. Too clever by half, in the end they fooled only themselves. Whether Rumsfeld will ever find humility remains to be seen, but for the present his smug arrogance continues to buoy him as he made so clear while presiding over his own exit.

Once again, the cost to the nation of the hubris and arrogance of mere mortals has been high, and for those who paid with their lives it could not have been higher.