Rumsfeld, Bolton's exit from stage hurts Bush

BY JOHN O SULLIVAN

John Bolton's resignation as the American ambassador to the United Nations makes it official: The Bush administration is now drifting idly toward a mixture of centrism and impotence.

In less than a month, two of President Bush's stronger and more independent aides -- Donald Rumsfeld and Bolton -- have been dispatched unceremoniously. Rumsfeld's designated successor, former CIA head Robert Gates, is a leading member of the Beltway's permanent bureaucracy. The administration seems to be waiting for the unelected Baker-Hamilton commission of old Washington hands to dictate U.S. policy on Iraq. Leaks from the commission suggest it will recommend a gradual U.S. withdrawal camouflaged by negotiations with Iran and Syria over a new Middle East grand bargain.

All of this feeds an exaggerated defeatism in the United States over Iraq.