Isn't it silly to fire the officials when the blame lies with the presidents? In my opinion, it's about as useful as blaming Rumsfeld for Bush's war. Appointed officials are servants who fall on their swords when needed to protect the boss. Punishing the underlings just insulates the presidents from blame.
Perhaps, but only to the extent that Bush would remove him... and, if tried, to the extent that he violated laws. Bush stood behind him, happily letting him take flak from the media and political opponents for years.
The buck has to stop with the president. How depressing for our civilization that people get worked up blaming a lower level appointee whose job it was to be operationally in charge of dirty work that was fully supported by the president.
I agree. But considering that underlings are used as chess pieces and must have their big picture plans approved by the president, it's folly to focus more than 5% of the attention on them.
In Rumsfeld's case, he was tasked with creating a shitstorm by acting crass and making controversial remarks. It worked flawlessly and diverted tremendous criticism and attention from Bush and the larger policy direction. Eventually when he'd done that effectively for years, his resignation was engineered to help Bush turn over a new leaf.
Rumsfeld was the architect of the military strategy that resulted in the Iraqi civil war, and was one of a few very loud voices in the administration in the aftermath of 9/11 militating for an invasion in the first place.
You're arguing that Rumsfeld was incompetent? I'd say he's among the most competent executives ever to deliver to his superiors exactly what they wanted.
Without hindsight bias, and considering that selling a cheap war was critical to getting buy-in from congress, Rumsfeld architected a great plan.
I'd argue that Rumsfeld is an incredible intellect and expert tactician who made zero mistakes.
