Kennedy Calls For Rumsfeld's Resignation

There's no doubt with all the incendiary rhetoric going back and forth that the gloves are off in our national politics – and the brass knuckles are on. The only question, as usual, is are we Democrats ready to take on the Neo-Conservative Death Cult and give as good as they consistently give us?

Senator Edward Kennedy did his part yesterday, calling Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld incompetent in his handling of the Iraq war and asking for his resignation. The face-to-face confrontation took place in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing over the situation in Iraq.

"Secretary Rumsfeld, you know we are in serious trouble in Iraq, and this war has been consistently and gross mismanaged. And we are now in a seemingly intractable quagmire," Kennedy said. "And the American people I believe deserve leadership worthy of the sacrifices that our fighting forces have made, and they deserve the real facts, and I regret to say, that I don't believe that you have provided either."

This is exactly why anyone who pisses off Republicans as much as Kennedy does should by definition be one of our side's big heroes.

Kennedy read a litany of Rumsfeld's screw-ups including the Secretary's bogus claim before the war that Iraq was escalating its weapons programs and his refusal to deploy a larger number of troops after the war as suggested by senior military officials.

"I'm talking about the misjudgments and the mistakes that are made ... and there have been a series of gross errors and mistakes. Those were on your watch. Isn't it time for you to resign?" Kennedy asked.

Thank you, Senator Kennedy.

Rumsfeld, who had given a rambling response to Kennedy's previous charges, said simply" I've offered my resignation to the president twice, and he has decided that he would prefer that he not accept it, and that's his call."

If Rumsfeld had the honor he demands from his troops, he would quit regardless of Bush's response to his resignation. Based on the quagmire he has created, he should keep resigning until it is accepted.

He should then ask Bush to do the same.