Add two more senators to the list. First, Trent Lott has lost confidence in the flailing Defense Secretary.
U.S. Sen. Trent Lott doesn’t believe Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should resign immediately, but he does think Rumsfeld should be replaced sometime in the next year.
“I’m not a fan of Secretary Rumsfeld,” Lott, R-Mississippi, told the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday morning. “I don’t think he listens enough to his uniformed officers.”
Next up, Maine’s Susan Collins.
“I think there are increasing concerns about the secretary’s leadership of the war, the repeated failures to predict the strengths of the insurgency, the lack of essential safety equipment for our troops, the reluctance to expand the number of troops,” Senator Susan Collins of Maine said Wednesday.
They join John McCain, Chuck Hagel, Retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, and Bill Kristol. For those keeping score at home, that means four high-profile Republican senators (including two from the Senate Armed Forces Committee that has oversight of the Pentagon), a high-profile military leader who campaigned for Bush, and the most influential conservative pundit in the country all believe Rumsfeld has failed in his efforts.
Bush, meanwhile, still doesn’t care.
White House officials said yesterday that Bush is unfazed by the intraparty attacks on Rumsfeld and believes the secretary is doing a “great job” running the Iraq war and overseeing the transformation of the military.
Officials didn’t offer any examples to bolster the “great job” analysis. I can’t imagine why not.