Darth Rumsfeld: Is Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense the Bush cabinet appointment progressive activists should’ve been spending their time organizing against? The press has largely welcomed his reentry to the executive branch as an eminence grise, but both his defense policy and his politicking are chilling to some analysts. And if they were bad for us in the ’70’s, they’re even worse for us in the ’00’s.

…(I)f history is any
indicator, there’s likely to be some friction between Rumsfeld and the new secretary of state, Colin
Powell. During the Ford administration, Rumsfeld masterfully neutralized many political and
policy rivals, creating a national-security advisory chain that ran from himself to Cheney to Ford,
with the once-mighty Kissinger cut down to size.

For George W. Bush, an administration without Colin Powell was unthinkable. But Powell is
viewed with suspicion by many on the right, over everything from Iraq policy to missile defense.
He has an appeal and a constituency broader than either Bush’s or Cheney’s. “On both
counts–politics and policy–Powell scares them a little,” says a senior Republican operative close
to the Bush White House. “They wanted someone committed to missile defense and who can go
toe-to-toe with Powell,” who is not known to be an enthusiastic supporter of an expansive NMD
program. The American Prospect