While some are expressing excitement that Secretary Rumsfeld is finally leaving the Department of Defense, I have two thoughts that are a little more sober, so excuse me if I don't join in the champagne cork popping just yet.
First, until the President shows a real commitment to changing course in Iraq, this is nothing more than a cosmetic change. New faces, fresh eyes, and all of that mean nothing, unless the man at the top changes his own point of view. Nothing in his press conference yesterday seemed to indicate to me that the President has come to the realization that the war in Iraq is breaking our military, and that we need a serious change of course. In fact, all this talk of accountability is misplaced, for one can only hold someone accountable if he believes there have been serious wrongs - and its clear the President believes nothing has been seriously wrong with his Iraq policy.
To put it in more layman's terms, President Bush is the head coach and yesterday he fired the Offensive Coordinator of the team. But, unless the President is also ready to toss his own playbook and look at his own philosophy, his team's performance won't get any better.
Second, not one person in the administration has said that it will be the new Senate, not the current one, that will make the decision on Robert Gates to be Rumsfeld's replacement.
The Senate that is currently seated contains a number of Members, whose votes demonstrate that they have little to no grasp of issues our troops face in Iraq. It would be a disservice to our troops still in harm's way to allow these Senators to have a vote when it comes to the new Secretary of Defense.
Mr. Gates has a number of serious questions to answer about how his tenure would differ from Secretary Rumsfeld's, and the current Senate has shown very little interest in asking the tough questions. Troops would be much better served by having the new Senate vetting Bob Gates.
The American people spoke on Tuesday, and clearly want a new Senate to take oversight duties when it comes to the war and military issues, and that vote should be respected. No hearings or votes on Bob Gates should take place until the new Senate is sworn in.
So, I'm just not ready at this point to say this is even a good first step. A good first step will be when the President admits that his "figure it out as we go, but stay the course plan" for Iraq has been a disaster. A good second step will be when it is made clear that the new Senate will run the hearings and votes on a potential replacement.
When that happens, I'll breathe a sigh of relief.