Shrewd assessment or wishful thinking from William Kristol?

Via Dan Froomkin, there’s an article by Guy Dinmore in the Financial Times suggesting that Donald Rumsfeld is on his way out as well. Well, it’s not the FT saying this so much as William Kristol: William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, said he saw a “slightly softer version of Bush politics” over the ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

Via Dan Froomkin, there's an article by Guy Dinmore in the Financial Times suggesting that Donald Rumsfeld is on his way out as well. Well, it's not the FT saying this so much as William Kristol:

Via Dan Froomkin, there’s an article by Guy Dinmore in the Financial Times suggesting that Donald Rumsfeld is on his way out as well. Well, it’s not the FT saying this so much as William Kristol:

William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, said he saw a “slightly softer version of Bush politics” over the next four years. He also predicted that Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defence, would resign, as President George W. Bush wanted to redress “the complete dysfunctionality of State and Defence and the refusal of Powell and Rumsfeld to work together”. If confirmed, Mr Rumsfeld’s removal would also mark what Mr Kristol called an “intellectual victory” for the neo-conservatives who railed against the defence secretary’s opposition to postwar nation building.

Kristol has much better inside dope than I, but I’ve seen little evidence that Rumsfeld wants to leave — or that Bush wants him to go. Then there’s this quote from Mike Allen’s Washington Post story:

Administration officials said Rumsfeld, the other most prominent member of Bush’s war cabinet, will continue to run the Pentagon for the foreseeable future. “The decision was made to keep Rumsfeld and drop Powell because if they would have kept Powell and let [the Rumsfeld team] go, that would have been tantamount to an acknowledgment of failure in Iraq and our policies there,” one government official said, requesting anonymity to speak more candidly. “Powell is the expendable one.” Rumsfeld was asked during a news conference yesterday if he had submitted his resignation to Bush. “I haven’t discussed that with him at all, in writing or orally,” he said.

Link via Andrew Sullivan. Greg Djerejian and Josh Marshall have useful thoughts on Bush’s motivations here.

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

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