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Ridge, Homeland Security Head, Steps Down
WeAz writes "According to MSNBC, Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge has decided to call it quits. 'Ridge, the seventh officer to leave Bush's Cabinet so far, oversaw the most significant government reorganization in 50 years.' Ridge joins Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and John Ashcroft as the newest cabinet member to resign from their office."
Rumsfeld resigned? Where the frig did you read that?
The article mentions, as is conventional wisdom, that he'll stay on for a few years to oversee operations in Iraq and transitions to national elections (assuming they ever happen). Of course, they were saying the same thing about Powell before the election.
Ashcroft, as kooky as he was, is being replaced by a guy who wrote a memo that called the Geneva conventions "quaint" and argued that it'd be legal for the administration to apply torture to certain people, some of whom would inevitably be innocent.
Rice. What is there to say about her? From her completely humiliating handling of the incident with the intelligence air craft that was forced to land in China (you'd think that a person with a PhD in political science would have had at least one class on the wolrds oldest and yet newest superpower.) Her inability to read memos. Her fantastically blatent mistakes, overstatements, and outright fabrications. You think the Rocky look-a-like would be headed for the chopping block. But no, without the leather flight helmet she's appearently be mistaken for Kissenger. Pay no attention to the lack of qualifications, and complete inability to serve her post effectively, she's black and can figure skate.
And the ex-governor. He started with nothing and created a monolithic mess that doesn't inform local police departments about anything useful, but did invent a worthless color code that no one ever paid attention too. In fact I don't think his department does anything other than waste taxpayer money.
Powell, of course, has had all of his integrity spent. He'll be the man who saw the rise and fall of the Powell doctrine, and stood by silently when he had only to speak the truth to stop a travesty.