Criticism of Rumsfeld Becomes a Political Chorus

[cal04]

Democrats and at least some Republicans appear to agree on one thing as the election approaches: Attacking Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is a way to lift them to victory.

For Democrats, the calculation is clear. They have begun a concerted effort, including pressing for a no-confidence vote on Mr. Rumsfeld in Congress this week, to portray him as the embodiment of what has gone wrong in Iraq.

For a small but growing number of Republicans, attacking Mr. Rumsfeld is a way to criticize how the war has been conducted without turning against the war itself.

“If I had my way, he wouldn’t be secretary of defense now,” Mike McGavick, the Republican challenger to Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington, said in an interview Tuesday. “I would have accepted his resignation after Abu Ghraib. I have lost confidence in him.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/06/washington/06rumsfeld.html?hp&ex=1157515200&en=87e92c581020d789&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Parisle]

1. Think This Through, Will You?

---- If Rumsfeld is an albatross around the neck of Bush, then he is an albatross around the neck of republicans, generally. As a PNAC member, he is a bonafide and leading neocon, so he damages their image, too. And he's a fool and a total, arrogant screw-up, ... people don't like him,.... so for Christ's sake, let him stay on 'til 2008. It's possible, y'know, that if Bush fired Rumsfeld and replaced him with somebody more rational and reasoned and less ideological,.. then the new guy could conceiveably improve the goddamned GOP's chances in 2008. Let it go.