While Matt is Katrina vanden Heuvel about the Democrats’ plan to offer a resolution demanding Donald Rumsfeld‘s resignation. Of course it’s understandable, particularly after Rumsfeld’s odious recent comments. But scapegoating Rumsfeld is a classic example of the incompetence dodge.
Should Rumsfeld actually be replaced, the assumption that he was the primary cause of the Iraq quagmire would allow voters to pretend that the problems in Iraq will be measurably improved by a new Secretary of Defense. Moreover, whether or not he’s dropped, the Democrats stand more to gain from painting the Iraq failure as a responsibilty of all — from the president to the most junior representative — who have supported it. As Katrina points out, if any Republicans vote for the resolution, they can put some distance between themselves and the Iraq war, even if they’ve been a staunch supporter of it. Besides, unlike placing all the blame for mistakes on Rumsfeld, as even The Weekly Standard is willing to do, that argument has the advantage of being true.