He won't do it now

Even if Bush was inclined to accept anybody elses opinion on this, he can't fire Rumsfeld now or he will look like Bush Sr. and "No new taxes." He has gone too far in saying Rumsfeld will stay to the end to back out now.

What I find more interesting is the near open revolt by the military. I have never seen anything close to this level of rejection by the US military. Even Clinton, who had a somewhat uncertain relation with the military, got more support. And the Bush administration was very popular with the military when they first came into power.

The active generals, staff and soldiers have been very careful careful in what they have said (and rightly so) but the unhappiness seems near universal. There are many countries where the military would have overthrown the government or the government would have sacked half the senior staff before now. Strong commitment to the principle of civilian control of the military but keeping civilians out of the operations of the military is one of the US's strengths.

I suspect that it is the bungling of this principle that is one of the things turning the military against the administration. From using mercenaries to meddling in military operations for political reasons, this administration has violated that principle deeply in many ways.

Jay

days - each. one-at-a-time. Congressional election results notwithstanding, Dare the US continue to leave the Bagman with this cabal for the next ~750 whole days ??

Stalin came >thisclose< to losing Round One of Operation Barbarossa so near-decisively as to likely lose All (saved only by - The Weather, in the end. A German patrol within 20 km of Moscow, just before Ice reversed the trend.) This for his having purged his military staff of the insufficiently adoring, who happened also to be the most experienced.

Similarly, had JFK gone with ~~Kissinger~~ Curtiss Le May and forthwith bombed/ started-to-bomb the launchers in 'Cuber': we did not know then, that the warheads were already in place and many of those launchers were operational. And would have launched. Followed stimulus/response by SAC. Had Khruschev been an ignoramus like Shrub; had JFK been as insouciant/suggestible as Shrub (as US propaganda always went re Khrushchev) but he wasn't: so no WW-TheLast. >thatclose< again.

Shrub has been 'purging brains' on all levels - wherever one is seen to erupt. Is that a connection?

Perhaps (back when there was a Republic here) we invested Too-much Life/Death ultimate autonomy in the Executive Powers, the FFs never having anticipated how easily can that department become hopped-up on Hubris/Power-drugs.

Now, of course - with an error-free pathologically stubborn Ox, next still free to stew solipsistically over *his* unLovedness: for almost 750 days, well - -

I have no Idea if there are any Burt Lancasters capable of launching 'betting pools on the Preakness' and acting? OR, as you suggest: equally capable of mowing down mobs-with-pitchforks.

Techno has given the means for near-instant Earthwide annihilation to a handful of sometimes-quite-Abnormal bipeds. We haven't worked out ultimate nuke-containment in the 61 years/3 mos since Alamogordo. We'd better hope for a Burt Lancaster \ufffd l\ufffd Seven Days in May ... if there is no next serendipitous accident? that does that omitted hard work for lazy-US, and everyone else alive.

No candle lit for this one.

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