Rats abandoning a sinking ship

From the WaPo:

This time it's William Kristol (editor, right-leaning Weekly Standard) sticking yet another shiv into the human pincussion that is Rummy.

Bonus points: The title of the article is "The Defense Secretary We Have." Oooh. Snarky!

So the Army is in charge. "They" are working at it. Rumsfeld? He happens to hang out in the same building: "I've talked a great deal about this with a team of people who've been working on it hard at the Pentagon. . . . And that is what the Army has been working on." Not "that is what we have been working on." Rather, "that is what the Army has been working on." The buck stops with the Army.

At least the topic of those conversations in the Pentagon isn't boring. Indeed, Rumsfeld assured the troops who have been cobbling together their own armor, "It's interesting." In fact, "if you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up. And you can have an up-armored humvee and it can be blown up." Good point. Why have armor at all? Incidentally, can you imagine if John Kerry had made such a statement a couple of months ago? It would have been (rightly) a topic of scorn and derision among my fellow conservatives, and not just among conservatives.

Kristol goes on to chide the secretary and to remind us where the buck should stop.

In any case, decisions on troop levels in the American system of government are not made by any general or set of generals but by the civilian leadership of the war effort. Rumsfeld acknowledged this last week, after a fashion: "I mean, everyone likes to assign responsibility to the top person and I guess that's fine." Except he fails to take responsibility.

And finally, the coup de grace.

These soldiers deserve a better defense secretary than the one we have.

When the right wing media turns on you, you're done like dinner. May your shivs join those of John McCain, Norm Coleman and Chuck Hagel. Kick his ass, Sea Bass!

And Mr. Secretary, when you decide to get out of the country for a few days to let the heat subside, you might want to avoid Germany for a little while.