Poindexter shown the Pentagon door

He never should've been let in. Now, after the debacle over the Pentagon's online futures market, he's getting the boot.

I never had a chance to decide what to make of the trading program (betting on terrorism attacks and assasinations in the Middle East). On a viceral level, the system seemed grossly inappropriate. But what if it actually worked?

But I never had a chance to make an informed opinion on the subject because my viceral reaction was shared by just about 99.7 percent of the country, including just about all of Congress, and the system was immediately shut down.

But best of all, Poindexter is disgraced yet again.

The official said that Poindexter had not been asked to resign, but added that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and senior aides had agreed the onetime national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan -- and a central figure then in the Iran-contra scandal -- had become too much of a political lightning rod. Poindexter is "working through the details" of his resignation and "expects to offer" it within a few weeks, the official said.

And as a bonus, Democrats get some easy material to work with.

"The problem is more than the fact that Admiral Poindexter was put in charge of these projects," Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said yesterday in a statement suggesting lawmakers may not be content to let the matter rest. "The problem is that these projects were just fine with the administration until the public found out about them."

Posted August 01, 2003 12:48 PM