{"id":9737,"date":"2006-11-08T12:45:27","date_gmt":"2006-11-08T19:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/11\/08\/rummy-takes-the-bullet.html"},"modified":"2006-11-08T12:45:27","modified_gmt":"2006-11-08T19:45:27","slug":"rummy_takes_the_bullet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/11\/08\/rummy_takes_the_bullet.html","title":{"rendered":"Rummy takes the bullet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has resigned<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If Bush’s legendary loyalty is to be believed, he wasn’t “asked” to resign — though that doesn’t mean that some of the folks around Bush didn’t suggest it strongly. And certainly somebody needs to take the blame for the election — even before the fact, since Rumsfeld’s decision was made before Tuesday.<\/p>\n

My read on Rumsfeld is that he was an idea guy, a technocrat, someone who figured he had The Way to remake the armed forces for the 21st Century, and steadfastly refused to back away from it or from the way it should work “in theory” in Iraq. Aspects of his ideas — a more mobile army, etc. — make some sense, moreso than relying on Cold War arms and tactics. But just as Bush’s inflexibility in the politics of Iraq has made a mess of things, even moreso Rumsfeld’s inflexibility in the military side
\nof Iraq has truly cocked things up.<\/p>\n

His departure — though relieving the Dems of an easy target — can only be for the good.<\/p>\n

His designated successor, Robert Gates<\/a>, is an old CIA maven from the Bush 41 days. It’s an interesting choice, being both non-military and, moreso, being from the intelligence side of things (esp. given how Rumsfeld kept trying to draw intelligence operations over to the Pentagon).<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has resigned. If Bush’s legendary loyalty is to be believed, he wasn’t “asked” to resign — though that doesn’t mean that some of the folks around…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[59,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-2006","category-geopolitical-brouhaha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4172,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/01\/24\/old_europe_stri.html","url_meta":{"origin":9737,"position":0},"title":"Old Europe Strikes Back!","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 24-Jan-03 8:21am","format":false,"excerpt":"Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's comments about \"Old Europe\" being out of step has drawn fierce scowls and finger-wagging from representatives thereof (France and Germany, to be precise). Some of the criticism...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5986,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/06\/11\/fly_me_to_the_m.html","url_meta":{"origin":9737,"position":1},"title":"Fly me to the moon","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 11-Jun-04 2:21pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Pentagon? Wasting money? Say it ain't so! The Defense Department spent an estimated $100 million for airline tickets that were not used over a six-year period and failed to...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5155,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/10\/23\/the_smoking_mem.html","url_meta":{"origin":9737,"position":2},"title":"The Smoking Memo","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 23-Oct-03 7:24am","format":false,"excerpt":"I got directed from a news site yesterday to a USA Today article about a leaked memo from Rumsfeld's office. Good Lord, I thought, reading the article. Are we winning...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6055,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/06\/01\/pressing_on.html","url_meta":{"origin":9737,"position":3},"title":"Pressing on","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 1-Jun-04 2:15pm","format":false,"excerpt":"And then, as we talk about media bias (or at least odd and gratuitious spins on a news story) we have this Reuter's coverage of Bush's activities on Memorial Day....","rel":"","context":"In "Fourth Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Fourth Estate","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/fourth-estate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6204,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/04\/28\/framing_actions.html","url_meta":{"origin":9737,"position":4},"title":"Framing actions","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 28-Apr-04 8:06am","format":false,"excerpt":"From Rumsfeld's DoD operational briefing yesterday: There are two ways, I suppose, one could inform readers of the Geneva Convention stipulation against using places of worship to conduct military attacks....","rel":"","context":"In "Fourth Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Fourth Estate","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/fourth-estate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5977,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/06\/14\/what_iraq_reall.html","url_meta":{"origin":9737,"position":5},"title":"What Iraq really needs","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 14-Jun-04 10:58am","format":false,"excerpt":"It's probably not what you think, and it's certainly nothing that Donald Rumsfeld ever planned for. (via HobbsOnline)...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9737\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}