In the wake of revelations of torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners, John Kerry has launched an important petition calling for President Bush to fire Donald Rumsfeld. Getting rid of Secretary Rumsfeld would be a huge step forward for all of us who oppose the Bush war policy, and Kerry needs to hear our support.

Thom T. sends the following comment:

Actually, I think these vermin are even worse than you
suggest, at least if the snipet you posted is
representative of the whole.

What is the implication from this statement? That the
scandal should be used to get rid of Rummy because it
would be a huge step forward, etc., AND NOT BECAUSE IT
WOULD BE THE RIGHT THING TO DO, GIVEN THE SEVERITY OF
RUMMY'S BREACH OF DUTY.

In other words, there is nothing to suggest that
Rumsfeld should be fired simply for his dereliction of
duty, but rather only because it would advance their
cause. Missing from this is any mention of concern
for the Iraqis injured (okay, maybe they don't deserve
it), or any view toward improving how our military
operates. Rather, to them the value in having
Rumsfeld removed is in advancing their own goals, so
what they're advocating is not action to rectify what
has occurred, but rather a cooption of it to in aid of
said advancement. And any attempt to actuaaly correct
the problem and see that it doesn't happen again be
damned.

More and more, the message I get from the Left is the
famous one attributed to Richard Nixon: "Screw the
doomed".

Yeah. The MoveOn.org message is actually quite different from the Kerry statement that it's built upon. Kerry says, "The Pentagon didn't move fast enough; we need to do something decisive to show resolve and good faith." MoveOn says, "It's Rummy! Let's get 'im!"