CNN ran a piece on Donald "Dr. Strangefeld" Rumsfeld this weekend called "Man of War". Watching him, one might conclude that the guy is as crazy as an outhouse rat, and it's hard to know which is worse -- having him in charge of the U.S. military or having a President who thinks he's a genius.

One striking thing from the Man of War piece was how quick Rumsfeld is to take credit but how far he tries to distance himself from his miserable failures. He won't take responsibility for anything that goes wrong.

For example, here's Rumsfeld on Abu Ghraib: "What was going on in the midnight shift in Abu Ghraib prison halfway across the world is something that clearly someone in Washington, DC can't manage or deal with."

And here's an interesting exchange with Rumsfeld on troop strength:

SESNO: One of your harshest critics, John Batiste, who commanded the First Infantry Division in Iraq says he asked for more troops while he was there. And he didn't get them. Were you aware that he felt that way or that request was out there?

RUMSFELD: No. I wasn't.

SESNO: Should you have been?

RUMSFELD: Well, I'm certainly aware that in any given location in any part of the world or in any part of that country that at any given moment someone down the line feels they need more of something.

SESNO: Batiste was wasn't just someone down the line. He had 22,000 troops under his command, responsibility for an area the size of West Virginia.

RUMSFELD: I'm also aware that the military commanders that he reported to had exactly the number of troops they asked for and wanted and assured us were appropriate.

SESNO: So when you look back and you think about what's gone right. What's gone wrong. Lesson learned. Troop strength is not something that you think about?

RUMSFELD: It's understandable people have different views on that. So it's that tension that General Abizaid and General Casey have been managing and trying to balance as well as they could and I think they have done a pretty darn good job.

Fascinating.

As you may recall, Rumsfeld has loosely followed a national security and foreign policy strategy laid out by the Project for the New American Century back in September of 2000. It called for, among other things, smaller, lighter forces that could be rapidly deployed to global hotpsots and smaller units that could be used for "constabulary" policing and peacekeeping duties.

By "transforming" (downsizing) the traditional military, the thinking was that more money could be spent on exotic technology such as a missile defense system and space based weapons and new information technology. (It also calls for permanent forward bases in the Persian Gulf, by the way.) And according to the report, the timing was right for all of this because "the United States is the world’s only superpower" and "faces no global rival". In other words, make hay while the sun shines.

Then came the 9/11 attacks.

Which is ironic, because the report actually suggested that the only way the American public would buy in to paying for all this transformation would be a "catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor."

They got their wish, and their strategies aren't working. It turns out we still need a strong infantry, even to defeat a third-world tinpot dictator like Saddam Hussein and his "dead-enders". Our "constabulary" forces ride around in worn-out equipment with inadequate armor, getting shot at and bombed by insurgents who were supposed to greet us a liberators. There's civil war in Iraq, and Afghanistan is now in danger of falling back under control of the Taliban because we took our eye off the ball. A missile defense shield won't help us much at this point. Nor would ray guns in outer space.

(As a side note, imagine sending 150,000 troops into Texas, which is about the size and population of Iraq. How successful do you think such an invasion and occupation would be? It doesn't take a military genius to figure out that this would be a script for disaster. In fact, that script has already been done. It was called Red Dawn.)

Rumsfeld had to backpedal. As this Washington Post article from back in February notes:

Furthermore, this QDR was the sequel to a blockbuster. In his first effort, Rumsfeld promised futuristic transformation. This one offered a chance to see how Rumsfeld's thinking had been shaped by the dramatic events since September 2001.

The document revealed that Rumsfeld has changed a lot. Four years of war against a highly unconventional enemy have persuaded him to maintain every conventional weapons system in the pipeline. No longer does the secretary talk about canceling major purchases to direct our money to a smaller, lighter, faster high-tech force.

Equally fascinating.

But an article in yesterday's New York Times reveals once again how Rumsfeld never admits mistakes and shifts responsibility whenever and wherever he can:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is allowing the Army to approach White House budget officials by itself to argue for substantial increases in resources, a significant divergence from initial plans by Mr. Rumsfeld and his inner circle to cut the Army to pay for new technology and a new way of war.

With its troops and equipment worn down by years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army appears likely to receive a significant spike in its share of the Pentagon’s budget request when it goes to Congress early next year. Significantly, increases to the size of the Army made by Congress since 2001, amounting to 30,000 troops, have become a permanent fixture of the force, military and Congressional officials say.

Beyond that, the Army is discussing internally whether it should expand by tens of thousands more, as some in Congress have long advocated. This time, Mr. Rumsfeld is not standing in the way. His original vision for a transformed military called for leaner, more agile forces capitalizing on the latest technological innovations.

Mr. Rumsfeld’s current acquiescence is viewed within the Pentagon as reflecting both the reality of the Army’s needs to increase its size and repair or replace current equipment and a decision not to cross swords with the service — or with the Army’s staunchest supporters in Congress. Some of them are sharply critical of the defense secretary’s management of the war effort and have called for him to step aside.

But Mr. Rumsfeld is requiring the Army to make its own case. The defense secretary has broken Pentagon precedent by allowing the Army to make its financial case directly to the president’s Office of Management and Budget, a task normally managed by the defense secretary and his staff rather than by the individual military services. The Air Force and the Navy also asked to present their budgets directly to the budget agency and the requests were granted.

So Rumsfeld is distancing himself from visions of transformation, and doesn't even have the guts to go before Congress and the White House to admit he was wrong and make a case for getting our military what it needs to conduct a war cooked up by the Bush administration and their neocon pals, including Rumsfeld. That's a hell of a way to support the troops. Heckuva job there Rummy.

America ought to be less concerned about imaginary WMDs and sexual predators in Congress and gay marriage, and more concerned about incompetents occupying the the Pentagon and 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Come November, we can only hope voters will realize that the only way to fix this disaster is to elect a Democratic majority to Congress so they can exercise their role of oversight and get the Bush administration under control.