Home » Politics & Society » Conservative Politics » A Rumsfeld Resignation

A Rumsfeld Resignation

© Frank Monaldo

Parliamentary governments are inherently more provisional than the presidential form under which the United States operates. Temporary changes in political fortunes can force elections, while presidents, save for "high crimes and misdemeanors" are permitted at least four years to attempt to implement their policies. The provisional nature of parliamentary governments is probably the reason that ministerial resignations for failures are more common under parliamentary systems. These resignations are more common even if the responsibility for failure is not directly attributable to a minister. Like the captain in command of ship, what ever happens, the minister takes responsibility.

There is, admittedly, a certain satisfaction and closure in a minister's resignation. It conveys as sense of accountability, salutary in democratic governments. There is even statistical evidence accumulated by political scientists that suggests that the timely resignation of a minister can cauterize a political wound and even enhance the political fortunes of the minister's party. Perhaps it is the inveterate American emphasis on individuality that makes it difficult to assign personal blame unless there are personal actions involved. Calls for resignation in the United States do not typically arise from a principled insistence upon absolute accountability, but rather from political oppurtunism. The calls for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld fall into this latter category.

Many Democrats, who want to maximize the political damage to the Bush Administration, are the same ones who were willing to overlook far more consequential decisions by Democratic cabinet members. Two cases come immediately to mind. In 1992, Attorney General Janet Reno specifically approved the assault on the Branch Davidians cult compound in Waco, Texas. The assault did not go as planned and 75 people died. In 1993, then General Colin Powel asked Secretary of Defense Les Aspin to grant the request of the US commander in Somalia for armored vehicles. Wishing to avoid a heavy presence, Aspin denied the requests. Partially as a consequence of this decision, 18 soldiers were killed in an ambush in Mogadishu.

Neither Reno nor Aspin willed those tragic outcomes. They erred in good faith. However, they were far more directly involved in the decisions that led to the disasters than Rumsfeld is to prisoner abuse, yet few Democrats asked for Reno's or Aspin's resignation. Republicans, of course, did, and Democrats reflexively defended Clinton's cabinet members.

Democrats and Republicans playing political games is expected behavior, but today when the stakes in the War on Terror are so grave, we should expect more. We know that the higher echelons in the military initiated an investigation immediately as information about prisoner abuse worked up the chain of command. Investigations apportion responsibility. However, the anxiousness by some on the Left to bring down Rumsfeld and to indirectly suggest that the US military is engaged in systemic and inherent abuse is unwise and unbecoming.

The copyright of the article A Rumsfeld Resignation in Conservative Politics is owned by . Permission to republish A Rumsfeld Resignation in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.