[Former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage ,] tells anyone who asks that he is a serious candidate to replace Rumsfeld, ... miracle.

a terrifying prospect to serious foreign policy players.

Between cell phones, text-messaging, e-mails and computers, this tells us that if this was a more serious rumor or in a larger city, this kind of thing could really create huge problems.

During the Koizumi administration, I served as the Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary as well as the Chief Cabinet Secretary.

He screwed up, and both [former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director] Michael Brown and [Homeland Security Secretary] Michael Chertoff really screwed up, so taxpayers are going to get the bill. Bush is overcompensating by promising the moon because his administration screwed up. Politics is driving policy.

But I made him the Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security because that added an element of political espionage.