The shots across Don Rumsfeld’s bow

Is it my imagination, or is the Beltway souring on Don Rumsfeld faster than a postseason bullpen collapse? True, a lot of defence policy wonks were never thrilled with him in the first place. Right before 9/11, the scuttlebutt about Rumsfeld’s impotence as SecDef was so loud that Tim Noah started the Rumsfeld Death Watch at Slate. Of course, Rumsfeld’s performance after the September 11th attacks silenced those murmurs. However, now Rumsfeld’s enemies and rivals leaking like crazy. In the past week alone, there was the Sy Hersh story and the the leaked memo. Today’s first example is this New York Daily News story:

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld angered the White House yesterday with a leaked memo questioning whether the U.S. was winning the war on terror. “This has put Rummy in a bad spot,” one Bush administration source said. “Before this he had personality and policy problems,” the source said. “Now he has a credibility problem because he’s acknowledged that they’ve all been putting on a happy face about Iraq.” It was the latest blow for the beleaguered defense secretary. Earlier this month, the White House switched responsibility for rebuilding Iraq from Rumsfeld to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. “The President isn’t happy,” but he won’t fire Rumsfeld, a Bush official said.

Josh Marshall points out that the administration source is likely, “some Bush One type at or in the orbit of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue” who’s close to Daily News reporter Tom DeFrank. However, this New York Times report suggests that Rumsfeld’s problems go beyond Bush I types. The story mostly quotes people in the legislative branch, but there’s more:

On issues that include General Boykin (who has likened the war against Islamic militants to a battle against Satan) and his own views about the war on terrorism (and the gap between Mr. Rumsfeld’s glossy public assessments and the more roughly hewn private views that leaked out this week), senior Republicans have joined Democrats in openly complaining that the Pentagon has left them in the dark and vulnerable on critical and sensitive political issues…. White House officials have also made clear that they are increasingly frustrated and impatient with Mr. Rumsfeld, particularly after he publicly criticized the president’s closest foreign policy adviser, Condoleezza Rice, earlier this month in an internal power struggle that the defense secretary made public. A Republican who is close to the White House said the view there had been that Mr. Rumsfeld “went off the deep end” in his reaction earlier this month to Mr. Bush’s decision to designate Ms. Rice as the overall coordinator of Iraq policy. “The worst thing that can happen in Washington is if you’re a cabinet member, you think you’re bigger than the president,” the Republican said. (emphasis added)

Check out Eleanor Clift’s Newsweek analysis as well. The Daily News story insists that Rumsfeld’s job is safe because, “sacking Rumsfeld would give the appearance of admitting that Iraq is as big a mess as his critics contend.” Still, if I was Tim Noah, I might want to crank up that death watch meme again. UPDATE: Drezner gets no results from Tim Noah, but gets some from Time and Newsweek.