by TChris

Donald Rumsfeld's insensitive decision to use a machine to sign the condolence letters he sends to families of soldiers who die in the war provides another reason (and we really didn't need another, did we?) to call for the Defense Secretary's resignation. While the President refuses to criticize Rumsfeld, others are not so circumspect.

[Nebraska Senator Chuck] Hagel, speaking on the CBS News program "Face the Nation," joined Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, in declaring his loss of confidence in the defense secretary, and said problems in Iraq were "all of the accumulation of bad judgment."

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a Democrat who serves on the Armed Services Committee, said Mr. Rumsfeld should go. He complained that the defense secretary's "management style is more corrosive than constructive," and said Mr. Rumsfeld's remarks to the guardsman were emblematic of his "disdainful, dismissive" style.

Some Democrats say they see "no need to remove the defense secretary if the president's policies remained the same." Unfortunately, changing the president's policies likely requires changing the president. And while there is little reason to hope that Rumsfeld's successor would be any more capable of "winning the peace" with this President in office, it cannot be good for the military to retain a Defense Secretary who has repeatedly demonstrated how little he cares about the men and women whose lives depend upon his judgment.