THEIR RESPECTIVE JOBS:

Collateral Damage (MICHAEL DUFFY, MATTHEW COOPER AND JOHN F. DICKERSON, May 16, 2004, TIME)

Just down the hall from Donald Rumsfeld's third-floor office at the Pentagon is a high-tech conference room where U.S. generals arrayed around the globe can talk to the Pentagon boss—and with his boss, if he happens to stop by. That is exactly what happened last week when Central Command chief General John Abizaid, appearing via videophone from Qatar, admitted that he was worried about the political fallout back home from the Abu Ghraib prison-abuse scandal. Hearing this, George W. Bush peered back at Abizaid, who oversees two continuing wars in Asia, and told him to ignore the static. "You worry about getting the job done," Bush said. "You let me worry about the politics and the things back here."

Even if he was naked drunk in every bar in Alabama thirty years ago--or whatever the scenario that races through fevered imaginations--that's a Commander in Chief talking.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 19, 2004 10:39 PM