Failing Grade?: Donald Rumsfeld says he would give the U.S. public affairs effort a “D” or a “D+” and says the country is not doing well in the “battle of ideas.” Which raises the question of how we’re doing in the battle of guns and bombs and beheadings. What kind of grade would Rumsfeld give the U.S. in that realm? And how much of the failing grade can be attributed to his own advocacy of techniques that undermine any claim that the U.S. is there to build democratic institutions? Needless to say, no one asked those questions.