The Fix is In

Looks like between James Baker and Henry Kissinger, there's been a change in management in the Company.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld stepped down Wednesday, one day after congressional elections in which opposition to the war in Iraq contributed to heavy Republican Party losses.

President George W. Bush said he would nominate Robert Gates, a former CIA director, to replace Rumsfeld at the Pentagon...

Rumsfeld, 74, was in his second tour of duty as defense chief. He first held the job a generation ago, when he was appointed by President Ford.

Gates is the president of Texas A&M University and a close friend of the Bush family. He served as director of the Central Intelligence for Bush's father from 1991 until 1993.

Gates first joined the CIA in 1966 and served in the intelligence community for more than a quarter century, under six presidents...

Looks like Gates was offered Black Spot's job as Director of Homeland Security awhile back, but Gates [or somebody] decided Negroponte was a better uber-spook. Like Negroponte, Gates was an unindicted co-conspirator during Iran-Contra.

Over at Correntewire, xan has an interesting suggestion: What if Diebold threw the $election to the Democrats?

My response: never forget the Company is not a monolith.

Look at what else happened today: the Negroponte faction of Iran-Contra got control of both Homeland Security and the Department of Defense.

While both branches of Congress are marginally in control of the Democrats, that means Bu$h (and, incidently, the next Reptilican candidate for Preznit) gets somebody else to blame for anything that goes wrong, and still holds the veto and the $upremes in the Carlyle Group pocket.

And speaking of the world’s largest private equity, even though the Party controlling Congress changed, if you talley up campaign contributions, they still own Congress.

Yet the fact that the Theocrats were unequivocally the big losers nationwide is priceless- not only to you and me, but to certain corporate barons who were damned tired of the way the holy rollers mucked up business.

It's very possible Diebold heard money talk louder than Jeebus this time around.