Quote of the Day

"The way to win the struggle is to win it."
--Sen. Kyl (R-Ariz), yesterday on how to defeat terrorism

Thank God for Republicans; I see now our strategy of "losing" was the wrong approach.

Quote taken from this article: Effort to force Rumsfeld 'no confidence' vote falters in Senate

In regards to the Rumsfeld issue, Matthew Yglesias thinks the Democrats are too narrowly focusing their criticism. He states, "This Rumsfeld-obsession plays a genuinely pernicious role in our national discourse. The basic reality of the matter is that between September 2001 and Spring 2003 the bulk of the American political and media establishments endorsed the key elements of the Bush foreign policy. Over the subsequent 18 months or so, it became obvious to the bulk of this establishment that the Bush foreign policy was a moral and practical disaster. Rather than conclude that they were operating from mistaken premises and that they should come up with some new, authentically different ideas, the predominant impulse has simply been to say 'we could have gotten away with it to if it wasn't for that meddling Rumsfeld!' Well, no. Rumsfeld's ideas were bad ones. But the bad ideas -- the policies, Bush's policies, The Washington Post's policies, Andrew Sullivan's policies, etc. -- are the issue here, not Rumsfeld personally."

It's a good point. While Sec. Rumsfeld does bare greater responsibility for these failures than most (as a member of original neocon brigade that thought up this war, helped architect our torture policy, ran the war with hubris and shortsightedness, etc), there is still a risk to make him the scapegoat... and thereby absolve everyone else of blame if/when he is removed from office. Similar to Hurricane Katrina and Michael Brown. With that said, I still think it was, and is, the right move for the Democrats. Rummy needs to go. Others do too, but he remains the weakest link.