Although I strongly detest the man’s hubris and arrogance, especially at press conferences, one can at least say he has vestiges of a conscience. Why? Because Rumsfield has offered to resign twice but has been asked to stay on by Bush.
At least he thought about taking some responsbility!
And retired generals and officers have been calling for his head for years. This really isn’t anything new…at least since the fall of 2003, when things started to get really ugly.
Rumsfeld, that is. I always want to put an ‘i’ in there. :smack:
Running the government is easier - you can take it as far into the red as you want!
-Joe
Because Rummy’s loyal, and probably because everyone else says he shouldn’t be the SoD. That’s the best way, it seems, to get Bush to do the wrong thing: Tell him what would be the wrong thing to do. He’ll flaunt even the best advice if it disagrees with his gut, perhaps more brazenly so out of his characteristic pig-headed defiance. Damn the real consequences, in his mind it all works out because God’s on his side.
…And not the President yet? 
You lot so need an elected cabinet.
There’s always the interpretation that his mistakes aren’t important.
I don’t have cites, but it’s pretty much been stated by various neocon armchair strategists that the important thing is to demonstrate that the US can and will wield its power in the absence of a counterbalancing Soviet Union, and that we do so by “shaking things up” in the Middle East. Once we’ve disrupted that status quo, everything will more or less fall our way anyway, because freedom and democracy are so attractive, we have the power, and God is on our side – and the details are unimportant.
Reminds me of Hitler’s famous assertion to his generals that invading the Soviet Union would work because “You have only to kick in the door, and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.”
Between that neocon line of thinking and the eschatological evangelists (nutballs who want to bring about the end of the world in a Middle Eastern war), Bush’s two main sources of moral guidance, one could argue Rummy has done just fine.
Sailboat
Read The One Percent Doctrine by Ron Susskind. Excellent background information on the planning and execution of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. After reading that and **State of Denial **by Bob Woodward, you begin to understand how Bush operates.
My guess is that in 10 years or so the entire US will be wondering WTF happened to our leadership at a critical moment in time. How did we elect such yahoos.
Surely Rumsfeld needs to stay on so he can officially say goodbye (with a handshake) to his friend and ally Saddam Hussein before the execution…
‘Twenty years ago, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met with Saddam Hussein, traveling to Iraq as a special envoy. The photograph of their handshake has taken on a life of its own in light of ensuing events. Hear NPR’s Mike Pesca and Robert Pelletrau, who was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State when Rumsfeld made the 1983 trip.’
I agree with the above and I’d also heartily recommend Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks. It presents the current, well, fiasco as an unusual coming together of just the right personalities and beliefs to make everything FUBAR’d. It also has a lot of detail about the many failures of the actual occupation and how they pretty much did everything wrong that you can do wrong in regards to a counter insurgency. It was like watching a slow motion train wreck, only in text form…
Yeah, I am actually reading that book at the moment. I’m about 70% through it. It’s reading that that prompted this OP. The more I read and the more obvious what a disaster it has become I just can’t help think that so much of this is due to Rummy’s belief that he is smarter than everyone else. I mean he is not the only bad guy, to be sure, but geez louise his direction in this affair was incredibly incompetnet and cotly that it just is baffiling. Anybody else in any endevour that had this kind of failure of policy would be out on his or her kiester so fast.
At which point you’ll have finally caught up with the rest of the world… 
MSNBC is reporting that Rumsfeld will resign.
CNN reports (conformed) that he is stepping down.
Breaking News:
CNN reports AP breaking news: SD Rumsfeld resigns.
RIP Motherfucker.
Slowpokes.
Can’t say I didn’t see it coming. Rummy, you know what not to let the door do.
So, whose idea was it, so you think? My guess is Bush finally accepted one of Rummy’s own requests for resignation, after an army of his handlers got on their knees and begged him to listen just this once.
Yeah, but you didn’t write an Op-ed as I did. 
Whoop! Wow, a good day just suddenly got even better!