He got all of that one

Sometimes when you read something, it says what it says so well that there's nothing to add:

From the Chicago Tribune (hat tip Knobboy):


Why Bush should keep Rumsfeld


Published April 20, 2006

Should the president fire Donald Rumsfeld? That's like asking if Disney should retire Mickey Mouse. Why get rid of someone who represents everything important about an institution--particularly if doing so leaves those things unchanged? No, President Bush should keep Rumsfeld as a perennial symbol of the administration's essential characteristic: hubris.

If you want to know what went wrong in the presidency of George W. Bush, you could find plenty of candidates. There is its ineptitude ...

There is its Soprano-style approach to critics and even in-house skeptics ...

There is its peerless gift for self-delusion ...

There is its brazen dishonesty ...

All these traits flow from the same source: a self-congratulatory narcissism that is utterly impervious to events in the real world.

That was a triumph of arrogance, which my dictionary defines as "an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions." And if you want a human embodiment of that trait, you can hardly do better than Rumsfeld, who was happy to take credit for the initial success of the invasion but pretends that anything that may have gone wrong is way beyond his control.
...
But none of that is reason for the president to sack him. The problem doesn't lie with Rumsfeld so much as with those above him. Worse, firing him would establish the principle that those entrusted with power are accountable for their failures. And if we followed that policy, who knows where it might lead?

Yipes! "Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria."