reality-based educator

According to Washington Wire, Democrats plan on attaching a "vote of no confidence" for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to defense spending legislation. Democrats hope that moderate Republicans looking to distance themselves from the administration's Iraq war policy will jump on board with them, making it difficult for the administration to defeat the vote.

Meanwhile in Israel, the fallout and criticism from the conflict with Hezbollah has forced Israeli army chief Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz to admit "there were in certain areas mistakes, particularly on the logistical and operational levels, as well as from the command."

The command, of course, would be Halutz himself (along with other military and political leaders who okayed a war plan that relied on, some say overestimated, air power and sent reserve soldiers deep into Hezbollah territory without being properly equipped.) The Israeli government announced a commission of inquiry into the war to see what went wrong and to fix it so it doesn't happen again. It remains to be seen whether the inquiry is honest or a whitewash, but at least the commision of inquiry was announced soon after the events in question. Compare that with the Bush administration's battle to keep the 9/11 Commission from being formed (and the amount of time and effort the administration expended stonewalling the 9/11 Commission after it was formed) and the whitewashed investigation into the pre-Iraq war intelligence debacle and the long-delayed Senate Select Sub-Committee on Intelligence report on whether the Bush administration deliberately misused the pre-war intel to bolster it's bullshit case for war. Perhaps Pat Roberts will release that report by the time Bush leaves office? If not by the time George Jr. leaves, maybe by the time Jeb leaves?

Anyway, a vote of no-confidence on Rumsfeld won't do much in the real world other than score political points for Dems and the Republicans who join them on the vote. As long as Bushie thinks Rummy is doing a "heckuva job," Rummy isn't going anywhere. There were rumors this week that Bush was asking around about replacements for Rumsfeld. But there were rumors back in March of this year that Rumsfeld was about to be pushed out at the Pentagon and replaced by Joe Lieberman. That never happened, of course, so who knows what's going on now. I suspect Bush and company still like having Rumsfeld at Defense to siphon off some of the criticism over the war and won't make a move to can him until after the midterm elections. But who knows? If Bush or Rove think pushing Rummy out before the elections helps the GOP, they'll do it.

And then Rummy can join former Coalition Provisional Authority head L. Paul Bremer (the man who insisted upon Debaathification, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army, and all CPA appointees be members of the Heritage Foundation or the Bush/Cheney political machine) , former CIA Director George Tenet (who oversaw the pre-war intel fuck-ups and the pre-9/11 intelligence fuck-ups) and General Tommy Franks (the Commander-in-Chief of Central Command who agreed to Rumsfeld's "fight the war on the cheap" Iraq battle plan) in receiving a "Presidential Medal of Freedom" from George W. Bush.

Accountability is priceless, isn't it?