A change of Pace

The Bush administration has decided not to renominate General Peter Pace for another term as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. According to Defense Sec Gates he'd initially decided to give him the nod but the Democrats changed his mind, some of whom had promised him a heavy round of hindsight artillery fire during the General's confirmation hearings, just in time for the 2008 election season.

Obviously Harry, Nancy and the gang would have taken us on a whirlwind tour of all the war mistakes during Pace's terms and they probably would have been successful. The show could have even included a Christian-bash due to Pace's remark that Don Rummy was "inspired by God" in his daily pursuits of the war. Crusader! There's also a recent letter in support of leniency for Scooter Libby, which would have surely helped create a near perfect storm of leftist boilerplate bashing.

But there's potentially more, sort of on the gossipy side. When Bob Woodward was hawking his most recent Bush book "State of Denial" on the talk show circuit he mentioned offhand that Pace told him he still believes Saddam was somehow involved in 9/11--the holy grail of liberal scoff. While this utterance is hard to find on the web Woodward could have always regurgitated it back up at some critical moment. Considering all the above it's a PR battle even Reagan would lose.

So, despite whether Peter Pace is a quality leader, a patriot, or even just an all around good guy his level of honesty mixed with the politics of war eventually produced a sort of new level of the Peter Principle, one without the incompetence. Showing once again the real war is the one going on in DC.