WHAT’S the dumbest thing George W. Bush could possibly do right at this moment – the action that would, more than any other, suggest his presidency was and is all but finished?
The answer: Fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Either a forced resignation or a dismissal would effectively bring the Bush presidency to an end.
This is something that Bush’s out-and-out foes and opponents of the war in Iraq surely understand, otherwise they wouldn’t be salivating over the prospect and doing everything they can to put pressure on the president to make it happen.
But some supporters of the president’s efforts in Iraq also seem anxious to see Rummy replaced. These thoughtful people have had problems with the war plan from the start and have been insisting for several years that only with another Defense Secretary can the war plan’s mistakes be corrected and the conflict brought to a positive conclusion.
Yet such a move would be an unmitigated disaster for the effort in Iraq.
Imagine the aftermath of a Rumsfeld firing: The presumption in the press and from gleeful Democrats would be that Bush was effectively acknowledging that the military campaign in Iraq would be doomed to failure with Rummy at the helm.
It would be a time for endless recapitulations of the supposed errors in judgment made by Rumsfeld and his people before, during and after the war – all spun to support the contention (from the retired generals who are now on the offensive against Rumsfeld and the State Department types who never liked the whole business) that the war was misconceived and has been badly waged.
Days and days of those retrospectives would accelerate the sense of depression and futility among the American people about the prospects for victory in Iraq.
In this hothouse atmosphere, Bush would then nominate a successor for Rumsfeld. That nominee, whoever he might be, would have to appear before the Senate in confirmation hearings that probably couldn’t start until June.
And those hearings would be a total and complete zoo. The committee’s Democrats would turn them into a referendum on the Iraq war, demanding that the nominee enumerate all the failings of the current military strategy and the ways in which he planned to make it better.
They’d place the nominee in an impossible position. Were he to defend the president and the war-fighting plan, he’d be derided as a know-nothing yes man. Were he to separate himself from the plan, the matter would not end there. Why wasn’t he more supportive of it? Did he believe we could achieve victory in Iraq? And by when?
And the Republicans on the committee, looking at the president’s poll numbers and the war’s unpopularity, would either chime in with Democrats when they thought the occasion warranted or run for the high grass.
Other witnesses would be called to testify, ones who’d use the occasion to barnstorm for a quick conclusion to the American presence in Iraq. Once again, Republicans would stand all but mute before them, terrified of saying something that might bring down the wrath of the e-mailers.
At the end of this destructive process, the new Secretary of Defense would take the oath of office in the midst of a general meltdown. The American people, hearing no confidence coming from the war’s own leaders about the coming victory, would be throwing up their hands in even greater numbers.
And the 150,000 brave men and women of our armed forces who are in Iraq attempting to do something great, could not but realize that their countrymen and their leaders were really and truly washing their hands of the effort. At which point they would rightly lose heart, and they too would begin to lobby for a getaway.
If you are among those who now basically think we might as well declare defeat even before we go home, then by all means, shout “Fire Rummy” at the top of your lungs.
But if you are among those who believe the war in Iraq must be won and that we can win it, it is madness to join the “Fire Rummy” crew. Even if you think Rumsfeld doesn’t deserve to keep the job, he must. There’s no other way.