I was looking through some recent links to this site and noticed that somebody came yesterday via a Google search for “i like Donald Rumsfeld”. For a moment, I had the sad thought that maybe it was Rumsfeld himself.

As I’ve written before, his departure is probably a good thing for him personally. I don’t know, or really care, about the politics behind his resignation. I understand that many people are upset by the way things have gone in Iraq and demanded a sacrifice. I’m not so sure that it makes us better off, though.

It depends on whether or not the alternative is better.

I don’t know whether or not Rumsfeld was a great administrator, but I know that he’s a really smart guy with a lot of good sense and he probably made many good and important decisions. Disagreements with generals aren’t necessarily a problem. If the Defense Secretary should never have such disagreements, why would we need civilian control of the military? Bush trusted Rumsfeld to pursue policies that were aligned with Bush’s goals, and I suspect that he did that as well as could be expected.

Let’s hope the new guy doesn’t screw things up trying to please people with different goals.

Happy Veteran’s Day