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wouldn't call for Rumsfeld's resignation, beyond saying with some prompting that he had no confidence in him. Was very critical, in some detail, as to why Rummy's performance was unsatisfactory but left it to junior to decide if he should go.
Good, except for the continuing toll in blood that this man's incompetence and arrogance have caused. Republicans really, really, want Rumsfeld gone because his awful performance is increasingly becoming a liability to them and his failures threaten to drag them all down.
But if this is the Democrats' strategy, to let the administration and the republicans stew in their own juice, piling on Rumsfeld and the administration's failed policies while stopping short of calling for his head I think it's a good one. Let the republicans do all of the machete work, it's something they're good at, even to their own. It makes them look ugly and, given the personalities involved, will drive some wedges in their ranks. Hopefully, some of those wedges will tip over toward the Democrats but that will remain to be seen.
In fairness to Rumsfeld, though (and a very left-handed fairness it is) there is no way that this misbegotten, poorly thought out and morally bankrupt policy could ever have succeeded. Any rational, reality-based thinking (not a strong suit in this administration) would have rejected the very idea of invading Iraq as insane, given the possibility (put forth by junior's dad after Gulf I), that an occupation after a military victory could be disastrous without a prohibitive investment in military and financial resources. Even then there would be no guarantee of a successful outcome.
Bad policy simply cannot be made to work by force of will, as this administration seems to believe (see "Vietnam, 1964 to 1974"). As bad policy it holds the seeds of its' own destruction and is doomed from the outset. Pull a random junker out of an auto scrapyard, half the engine parts missing and only three wheels, and 1000 Mr. Goodwrenches won't be able to get it to run, although they can make it look like it's running by pushing it around for a while. Sooner or later, that excercise will become more and more demoralizing as it continues to make less and less sense (if it ever made any at all) and besides, everyone else will be able to see that they're just pushing it anyway.
And who but the most delusional would want to keep pushing? Who now would want to inherit this monstrous failure in the vaguest hope that they might succeed? Wolfowitz? Doesn't want it, wouldn't touch it. My read of him is that he likes it where he is and has no desire to have the ultimate responsibility for the policy he helped create. If you do see him being sworn in, look at the guy standing behind him. Chances are he's got a gun in Wolfie's back.
I like Doug Feith's chances. No less than Tommy Franks dubbed him the "dumbest f**king guy on earth", and can there be a better qualification for a cabinet secretary in junior's second term? After all, we've seen how seriously junior takes national security after his abortive attempt to nominate Bernard Kerik, a former NYC police commissioner, for chrissake! This guy, in addition to having no qualifications whatsoever to run a new agency tasked with our nation's internal security, had more baggage than a Samsonite outlet, all well known in the NY area. Obviously, our new AG didn't bother to look beyond his bosses' directive that "I want this guy hired" in vetting him for this sensitive and critical post. This should give those of you who work in tall buildings or live near a large chemical plant or nuclear power plant a lot to think about.
I really don't think it matters who ends up as SecDef after Rumsfeld leaves to spend more time with his family or because he forgot to pay taxes for that undocumented nanny all those years ago or whatever. Our army is being broken by the wrecking machine that is this administration's policy of preemptive war. I can't imagine that the SecDef isn't the man the U.S. Army hates the most after his little morale-boosting comment about "going to war with the army you have, not the army you want". Way to go, Donnie, you just told every G.I. that he or she wasn't your first choice as cannon fodder for the administration's personal war. That would be quite a bar for his successor to fit under but at least there's nowhere to go but up. The insurgency has plenty of time, people, and weapons, thanks to our disbanding the existing Iraqi Army, and can simply wait for us to cut and run as the Soviets did in Afghanistan. The office will forever be tainted by its tacit approval for torture, with it's implications for our moral stature on human rights abuse as well as the treatment of our own troops in captivity. And this is the short list of all of the damage done in two years. Who in their right mind would want this job? How could anyone think they could fix this wreck?
So plenty of juice for the administration to stew in, with their own turning up the heat while the Democrats throw on the occasional can of gasoline and enjoy some well-earned schadenfreude. Let Rummy stand there as a living symbol of their arrogance and incompetence and when the knives come, let them be in republican hands.
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