Rumsfeld off the hook

At least he's partially off the hook with me. Somebody needs to be held accountable (not that it's likely to happen) and we now know for sure that the "somebody" in question is none other than Dubya. Why? Because after his awful mismanagement of the war and the torture scandals, Rummy offered to resign twice and Bush turned him down both times.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says he twice offered President Bush his resignation during the height of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, but the president refused to accept it.

In an interview to be aired Thursday night on CNN's "Larry King Live," Rumsfeld says: "I submitted my resignation to President Bush twice during that period and told him that ... I felt that he ought to make the decision as to whether or not I stayed on. And he made that decision and said he did want me to stay on."

This pretty much seals the deal for me on the DoD issues regarding the clusterfork in Iraq. Rumsfeld did, to his credit, go before both Armed Services committees and say that it "happened on his watch" and he was responsible. That was the first step. The second step would have been to step down and get somebody competent in the office.

Now we know that he offered to do so and was told to remain at his post. While Rumsfeld was (and remains) completely unqualified for that post, the fault no longer lies with him. Anyone can hire a person who turns out to be unsuitable. It happens all the time. The question is, how do you react when that happens? If somebody messes up that massively, yet you keep them on in the same position, encouraging them to continue on the same paths and methods, the fault no longer lies with the unqualified worker. It lies with the manager who empowers them to push on in their incompetent state.

Rumsfeld is an idiot, but Bush is criminally liable for this mess.

Bitter? Me? Oh, go on.