Harry Reid was right

After reading this today, I've concluded that Harry Reid is right. Fired Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace is a stupid fool:

WASHINGTON - In his first public comments on the Bush administration's surprise decision to replace him as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace disclosed that he had turned down an offer to voluntarily retire rather than be forced out.

To quit in wartime, he said, would be letting down the troops.

… "One thing that was discussed was whether or not I should just voluntarily retire and take the issue off the table," Pace said, according to a transcript released Friday by his office at the
Pentagon.

"I said I could not do that for one very fundamental reason," which is that no soldier or Marine in Iraq should "think — ever — that his chairman, whoever that person is, could have stayed in the battle and voluntarily walked off the battlefield.

Retiring from the comfort of a Pentagon office is not quite the same thing as walking off the battlefield.