The End Of An Error

Today is Rummy's last day, and what better way to send the old buzzard off to his vacation pad in Santo Domingo than to go through the motions and have ponderous changing-of-the-guard ceremonies that cloud the fact that this guy screwed the pooch from the get-go?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Architect of the unpopular war in Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is no stranger to harsh criticism. But Friday was planned as a day of praise, pageantry and testimonials for the outgoing Pentagon chief.

Three days before he steps down, the Defense Department was ready to salute Rumsfeld's nearly six years of service in the Bush administration with a full honor review by the armed forces. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were to be the lead speakers.

....

And despite his half century in public service, he is being sized up not by the long reach of his career but by its ending — the body slam of Iraq.

With an eye on his legacy, Rumsfeld asked to be judged by the extraordinary nature of today's threat, like none that has come before.

"There's no road map, no guidebook," he said. "The hope has to be — not perfection — but that most decisions, with the perspective of time, will turn out to be the right ones and that the perspective of history will judge the overwhelming majority of those decisions favorably."

He's right. Everything depends on perspective. If your perspective is that Rumsfeld's (and Cheney's, and Bush's) decisions were carried out as planned, then it was a success. They meant to do this shit. They just refused to listen to the people who repeatedly tried to warn them of the likely consequences.

And that is how history will judge them. They're not going to be naming schools after these idiots, not here and not in Iraq. Get used to it, and don't go away mad, boys -- just go away.