Presumably exhausted after hours of earlier testimony before both the Senate and the House, Don Rumsfeld strayed a bit off-topic late Friday afternoon in response to a question from Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.). Langevin wanted to know, sensibly, "how do we restore our credibility on human rights," in the wake of revelations of torture and abuse at U.S.-run detention facilities. Rumsfeld's answer:

Last week we learned that John Negroponte would become America's new ambassador to Iraq and will be running U.S. policy in the quasi-sovereign state that will exist from July 1 until elections can be held and a permanent constitution ratified. He speaks no Arabic and he has no experience in the Middle East or the Islamic world. He does have experience, however, dating back to his service as ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to1985, when he was responsible for implementing Ronald Reagan's illegal intervention in the Nicaraguan civil war. This experience also extends to turning a blind eye to serious human-rights abuses by the U.S.-funded Honduran military and lying to Congress about it. As a democracy-promotion strategy, the choice of Negroponte is a bit, shall we say, odd.