I was busy reading the results of exit polls from the November 7th elections and glanced up at the TV. The story of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation was breaking and I put down my papers to digest the news. It certainly wasn’t a shock. A day earlier Americans had repudiated the Iraq war policy and given Bush and the Republicans, to use W.’s own term, a thumping. To save his presidency — and his party’s chances of holding the White House in 2008 — Bush had to show Rumsfeld the door. Everyone knew that, especially the politicians who’d lined up to call for Rummy’s head weeks earlier. It was an open secret that a thumping would lead immediately to a dumping.