Obviously, Mr. Rumsfeld won't step aside, without a good shove. It's stunning that our President won't provide this shove to anyone, except "loonies" like those that project some realistic estimate of the costs of the war (Oneil, Lindsey, etc.).

Admit that President Bush has no sophisticated thoughts on foreign policy or international relations. The MBA approach to government just doesn't work. Meanwhile, the academics (Wolfowitz, Rice, etc.) will keep at their game.

Good luck to Powell with the peace-in-the-Mideast thing. Pragmatism rules, until it doesn't.

We need a strong President to get hold of all these (potentially useful) currents running through the executive branch.

Yes you academics are SO much better at everything, or rather better at knowing everything and doing nothing.

The MBA approach to government just doesn't work.

Not necessarily. Bush isn't just a CEO, he's a really bad CEO. So this administration probably doesn't make a good test case.

Bush's no-firing approach makes me think that his management experience has mostly consisted of positions where someone else was the actual manager, and he was just along for the ride.

It goes way beyond a "hands-off" management style.

As the story says: "He said he believed Mr Bush was waiting for the trio to express their preferences"

That doesn't sound much like a resolute, determined leader.

Short answer: Jan, 2009.

Hey Cromer, if you want to be so aggressive, take your ass down to a Recruiting Station.

Meanwhile, Tom Friedman points out how the attack on Fallujah is just deja vu all over again, for the attack on Iraq. But maybe the idea is to have a state of perpetual half-successful war?

I heard a report that insurgents were passing out flyers in another town telling shopkeepers to close up shop. It's not like they've got their own cable TV show, but flyers are somewhat sophisticated. Which leads me to ask, what exactly are we doing in the psyops/hearts and minds front to counter attempts by insurgents to get support from the local population? Shouldn't the publicly released information on this be discussed? Supposedly four Baathists are running the insurgency from outside Iraq. What are we doing to cut their communication and funding?

This bit about the oil reminds me of the "global test." Perhaps the BushBots were wrong about that test. If we'd spent the time to convince the world - or at least striking a bargain with the world - we'd have a better chance at winning hearts and minds.

In completely off-topic news:
-Bush revives guest worker plan.
-Two "tanks" (actually Light Armored Vehicles) visit an ANSWER protest in Westwood. Were they there to intimidate, or were they just lost on their way to this morning's Veteran's Day memorial?

>One niggling thought -- if Mr. Rumsfeld fails to solve the insurgency problem -- created in part by Mr. Rumsfeld's failure at contingency planning -- just when would he decide to step aside?

When the United States 'withdraws' from Iraq. Which should be Feb. or Marchish. They don't want us there, and we don't want to be there.

Besides, they've got to R&R to get ready to hit Iran.

ash
['No choice.']

That's classic Rumsfeld.

SALVATIO: "You screwed up! Why won't you resign?"
RUMSFELD: "Why won't I resign? Because I don't want to leave under a cloud."
SALVATIO: "..."

Rather like his whole COIN strategy:
RUMSFELD: "Why aren't we leaving? We aren't leaving because Iraq isn't stable yet."
SALVATIO: "It's not stable in the sense that it's full of people shooting at us."
R: "Yes."
S: "Because they want us to leave."
R: "Yes."
S: "So you're saying we have to stay until nobody wants us to leave, then we'll leave."
R: "But not a day sooner than that!"
S: "..."

It's the first CEO administration, all right.
Pity the CEO in question seems to be Dilbert's boss.

Stability among Bush appointees the President relies on most could have been predicted.

Bush is not Nixon or his father, someone who knew almost everyone worth knowing among people who could fill important government posts by the time he became President. It goes without saying he isn't Reagan either, someone with enough self-confidence to hire someone based on a good impression without worrying too much if he would be damaged if the appointee didn't work out.

Bush is instead exectly what he looks like: a man with very limited background in national government and especially in national security affairs, who delegates less from design than because he cannot operate in any other way. He does not trust easily, and does not know that many people well enough to trust them -- certainly not to manage the enormous Pentagon account in wartime. So for those positions that must be occupied by someone Bush trusts he will seek to hold on to the people he has now until they leave on their own.

All this chatter about government by CEO is just so much fluff to impress journalists who understand even less about business than they do about government.

"One niggling thought -- if Mr. Rumsfeld fails to solve the insurgency problem -- created in part by Mr. Rumsfeld's failure at contingency planning -- just when would he decide to step aside?"

Well, barring any serious health problems, I would guess Mr. Rumsfeld's tenure at the Pentagon will be unlikely to terminate any time short of January 21, 2009 - One of the hallmarks of the Bush 43 Adminstration has been the consistency of its personnel (save for the hapless few like Paul O'Neill who got too "reality-based" for the liking of the White House) - and given that George W Bush (despite the "resolute leader" piffle put out by Adminstration propagandists) is mostly a hands-off "manager", it's a safe bet to assume that Sec. Rumsfeld will be at his job as long as he wants to.

Rumsfeld may not stay as SecState... because someone's gotta be the new Director of National Intelligence. It's not gonna be Porter Goss.

I mean SecDef, of course....