Why I Say Keep Rumsfeld Right Where He Is

A couple of folks have written me email asking why I haven't joined many others in publicly declaring my desire to see Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld fired. Trust me, it's not because I either respect the man or believe he's doing a good job. Neither could be farther from the truth for me.

However, just as John Nichols wrote in The Nation, I do not support the removal - forced or otherwise - of Rumsfeld from DoD for a very simple reason. If it's done, it would be done ONLY by Bush as a face-saving measure where he could behave as if the situation with Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, et al, has somehow changed because the face in the DoD has changed. This would be a patent lie.

The only way we can really change course is the removal of ALL the Bushies. Rumsfeld is ONLY doing what Bush and Cheney want. He's not acting solely on his own. Our soldiers, our contractors, and the civilians in these war-torn or war-fearing countries - will be NO SAFER with just the removal of Rummy because Bush and Cheney will install someone in that position who will do their bidding just as Rummy has done it before him. The replacement will be someone horrid and Bushian and probably no one who's ever come closer to actual combat than being in a store once that sells GI Joes, like John Negroponte, Bolton or Bolten, or someone equally as undistinguished and poorly prepared.

So - since no real changes will be made - leave Rummy in place to remind the American people of how miserably the Bushies will continue to handle all of this. Anything else is just staging and showmanship.

Let the American people sit there and digest Bush telling us, "Rummy's done a heckuva job"... just like he did with Michael Brown of FEMA during the catastrophic response to Hurricane Katrina while everything we do in Afghanistan and Iraq goes wrong, while Halliburton et al steals us blind, and while the Bushies drive up oil prices with saber rattling at Iran.

Agree or disagree?