Rumsfeld

An important point by Yglesias that’s not made often enough:

Rumsfeld has been a poor Secretary of Defense. Overwhelmingly, however, this poorness has tended to manifest itself in Rumsfeld advocating horribly misguided policies that the President of the United States also advocates. Now, there’s a question as to what extent Rumsfeld is actually influencing Bush to adopt the same horribly misguided policies as Rumsfeld, or to what extent Rumsfeld and Bush just happen to be in agreement on all this stuff. Probably the question isn’t answerable. The issue, however, is Bush, not Rumsfeld. It’s not as if Rumsfeld just did some one dumb thing two weeks ago and Bush has the chance to wash his hands of it. The problem with Rumsfeld just is the problem with the Bush administration’s national security policy. Pretending that there’s some “Rumsfeld issue” that could be resolved with a resignation at which point everything will be back on track is absurd.

When I first saw the words “Resign, Rumsfeld” in big letters on the cover of The Economist, I was impressed, but upon reflection that was pretty clearly a case of the soft bigotry of low expectations. Perhaps there’s a plausible account on which Iraq and related debacles demonstrate that Rumsfeld is unfit for his job but Bush isn’t, but I don’t see it. Of course, Sensible Moderates can’t speak frankly about Bush’s manifest incompetence, so calling for Rumsfeld to resign became a sort of code. It also helps that Rumsfeld is the one figure in the administration who looks more like he’s over his head than Bush when the camera’s on.

This particular bit of the rules of polite speech is pernicious because it obscures the truth, and actually works in Bush’s favor, by suggesting that while he may have made some mistakes, it’s really not his fault and he’s just being too loyal. It’s not an entirely flattering picture of Bush, of course, but it’s far more flattering than a truthful account.

…..upon reflection, a further problem with the Economist cover is that it suggests when confronted with a manifest evil like Abu Ghraib, the first and most pronounced impulse is to issue a clarion call for political theatre, rather than serious legal accountability. I must say I’m rather embarrassed this wasn’t all clear to me at the time.