Altman in Iraq

This NY Times piece from this morning read more like a scene from a Robert Altman movie than a newspaper article, complete with unlikely bedfellows and witty, off-the-cuff banter.

Hashim al-Menti smiled wanly at the marine sergeant beside him
on his couch. The sergeant had appeared in the darkness on Wednesday night,
knocking on the door of Mr. Menti’s home.

When Mr.
Menti answered, a squad of infantrymen swiftly moved in, making him an
involuntary host.

Since then marines had been on his roof with rifles,
watching roads where insurgents often planted bombs.

Mr. Menti had
passed the time watching television. Now he had news. He spoke in broken
English. “Rumsfeld is gone,” he told the sergeant, Michael A. McKinnon.
“Democracy,” he added, and made a thumbs-up sign. “Good.”

The marines had
been on a continuous foot patrol for several days, hunting for insurgents. They
were lost in the hard and isolating rhythms of infantry life. They knew nothing
of the week’s news.

Now they were being told by an Iraqi whose house
they occupied that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, one of the principal
architects of the policies that had them here, had resigned. “Rumsfeld is gone?”
the sergeant asked. “Really?”

Mr. Menti nodded. “This is better for
Iraq,” he said. “Iraqi people say thank you.”

The sergeant went upstairs
to tell his marines, just as he had informed them the day before that the
Republican Party had lost control of the House of Representatives and that
Congress was in the midst of sweeping change. Mr. Menti had told them that,
too.

“Rumsfeld’s out,” he said to five marines sprawled with rifles on
the cold floor.

Lance Cpl. James L. Davis Jr. looked up from his
cigarette. “Who’s Rumsfeld?” he asked.