Rumsfeld out, Bush dumber than thought

Don Rumsfeld has resigned as the SecDef.  I doubt many people are shedding tears to see him leave the Pentagon, but Bush’s handling of his resignation lends credence to the popular belief that he is an idiot.

First of all, if Rumsfeld was not a capable SecDef then Bush should have fired him long ago.  Based on Bush’s unwavering support of  Rumsfeld over the last six years we can ascertain that Bush was confident of Rummy’s capabilities.

That can only mean that giving Rumsfeld the boot was politically motivated.  Clearly Bush’s team was looking for replacements for Rumsfeld over the last few weeks (months?).  It’s not like W started leafing through his rolodex after the poll numbers came in last night.  So if you’re going to oust the least popular member of your cabinent for political reasons then why in the hell would you wait until after the midterm election?  Why in the hell would you come out one week before the election and resolutely proclaim that Rumsfeld (and Cheney) will be around until 2008, effectively submarining candidates of your own party?  I just don’t understand it.

Rumsfeld had to go.  It’s looking more and more like we would have been better served to have Colin Powell as SecDef, rather than in the State Department.  Rumsfeld’s strategy of using a small, agile force with overwhelming firepower is well suited to winning most wars, but it is not well suited to occupying a country as a police force.  The Powell Doctrine may have kept us out of the war to begin with, but at a minimum it would have resulted in better planning and larger forces, which is one of the things that troops in Iraq say is needed if we want to win (which is a nebulous concept itself within the context of the Iraq war).

Judging by his press conference today, Bush chose to address the new majority party from a position of conciliatory weakness.  His first act was to remove one of the primary objects of Democratic scorn from his cabinet.  That’s fine; handing out the proverbial olive branch is always a good idea.  Then Bush made little effort to suppress his glee about being able to get his preferred illegal alien amnesty bill passed now that the pesky members of his party are out of the way.  Bush went so far as to say that he may support increasing the minimum wage.  That’s quite a welcome mat for the Dems!

I’ve suspected for a while that Bush is little more than a Democrat in sheep’s clothing.  Dan pointed out that the conservative slant of the Dems who won seats in Congress may result in some socially conservative, but economically “progressive” (codeword for socialist) legislation – as he puts it, “the worst of both worlds.”  Based on Bush’s track record he may be all to eager to play ball with that bloc.  I hope he doesn’t make me wish I had voted for, gulp, Al Gore or John Kerry.