He tried to quit a couple of years ago, but the President refused his resignation. now Donald Rumsfeld becomes the first to leave the first member of the Bush Cabinet following the debacle in the mid-term elections.

With a wry smile, Donald H. Rumsfeld gently alluded to the controversies of his tenure as defense secretary, perhaps the most consequential since that of Robert S. McNamara during the Vietnam War.

Thanking the president for the opportunity to serve, Rumsfeld said in a brief Oval Office session yesterday afternoon that the experience brought to mind the words of Winston Churchill -- "something to the effect," he quipped, "that I have benefited greatly from criticism, and at no time have I suffered a lack thereof."

It was a rare melancholy moment for the alpha male and onetime Princeton wrestler who ran roughshod over the military brass, sparred bitterly with the media and mounted fierce rear-guard battles against the State Department during a six-year run that saw him become, first, an unlikely television celebrity and then the face of an unpopular war.

Though Bush affectionately patted Rumsfeld on the shoulder as he ushered him out of the Oval Office, there was little sugarcoating the reality that the defense chief, 74, was being offered as a sacrificial lamb amid the repudiation of Bush and his Iraq policy that the American electorate delivered on Tuesday.

Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff, had actually recommended this course of action to Bush two years ago. The fact that the defense chief lasted so long in the job was essentially a reflection of the fact that, in firing Rumsfeld, "you are basically admitting you made some serious mistakes in the conduct of the war," observed former White House chief of staff Leon E. Panetta.

Bush has made a solid move by naming former CIA director Robert Gates to fill the vacant cabinet position. Let's hope that the new Democrat majority in the Senate chooses to act responsibly and not play politics with the nomination.

Posted by: Greg at 11:06 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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