Bob Novak reports this morning:
Senior Defense Department officials say Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has told them nobody should stay for just another year, but that he wants them for the rest of President Bush’s second term. That is read as a signal that Rumsfeld intends to serve out the next three years.
Rumsfeld finishing his term would contradict wide speculation that he will quit soon after this week’s Iraqi parliamentary elections. That is now
considered unlikely even if he does not complete the full term.
A footnote: White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card has said flatly there is no truth whatsoever to reports he is about to move to the Treasury to replace Secretary John Snow.
When I see the MSM engaged in “wide speculation,” I read that as more wishful thinking on their part than anything based in actual fact. But I am glad Rumsfeld is staying. I like him. He is my favorite administration personality, after the President and Mrs. Bush. I do not think he has botched the war, as some have said, and the fact that the majority of Iraqis, Shia and Sunni, voted in relative peace on Thursday tells me the Iraqis don’t think he has botched it, either. When an acclaimed military historian, proficient in the minutia of war from Thermopylae through the 21st century, extols our current Secretary of Defense, we know we have a rare man serving us with insight, compassion, and intelligence.
Secretary Rumsfeld reminds me of my Dad, home with the Lord now for seven years. My Dad told the truth, and politics, certainly, or tact, even, didn’t necessarily figure in to it. I appreciate that about Secretary Rumsfeld. He has fantastic administrative experience, handles the press without fear, and is committed to the right course, even if the MSM howls about it. If he ran for President in 2008, I would support him.
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