Mr. Congeniality

Elizabeth Bumiller in this morning's New York Times does a backgrounder on the curious relationship between Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and El Presidente's father, George H.W. Bush.

I did not remember, for example, that in 1988, when George Senior was Reagan's vice president and preparing for his own run for president, Donald Rumsfeld himself announced his candidacy. "There's a certain amount of disrespect when Rumsfeld decides to run for president in '88 with a sitting vice president," said James Mann, the author of "Rise of the Vulcans," a history of the current president's war cabinet.

"A certain amount of disrespect" pretty much sums up Rumsfeld. What Bumiller finds especially interesting is the further evidence of George Junior's total independence from his father, in the very selection of Rumsfeld in the first place to be Defense Secretary. George Junior has already said that the only father he consulted about invading Iraq was his heavenly father, who told him it was the Right Thing To Do.