LOS ANGELES: Very few cabinet secretaries have done what Donald Rumsfeld has done. He is both the youngest and oldest person to serve as secretary of defence (having served previously in the job more than 30 years ago under President Ford), and, at least this time around, he has become one of the most despised cabinet secretaries ever.

In fact, the number of people who have come to hate Rumsfeld has grown so much in the Senate and elsewhere that it’s become necessary to take a step back to contemplate by what means the Constitution might allow them to vent their hatred.

The first and most obvious means is through the impeachment process. As a cabinet secretary, Rumsfeld may be impeached and removed from office under Article 2 of the Constitution for ‘treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanours’. Rumsfeld’s critics charge him with a long list of what they say are impeachable offences, including incompetence and ordering the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and other military detention centres.

The second way Congress could express disapproval of Rumsfeld is through censure, like the no-confidence vote Senate Democrats are seeking. This would have no force of law but would merely express their lack of confidence in Rumsfeld as defence secretary. Both the House and the Senate pass resolutions expressing their opinions all the time. I doubt that Rumsfeld, or President Bush, would object on constitutional grounds if the House or Senate were to pass a resolution praising either or both of them. Similarly, a resolution condemning either is constitutionally unobjectionable.

A third option is to persuade the president to fire Rumsfeld. We have had unpopular cabinet secretaries in the past. Sometimes presidents are persuaded to get rid of them, as when President Reagan removed Interior Secretary James Watt; sometimes they are not, as when a congressional delegation asked President Lincoln to get rid of Secretary of State William Seward.

The best opportunity to remove Rumsfeld may be after the midterm elections, which Democrats hope to make a referendum on Iraq and Rumsfeld.

—Dawn/The Los Angeles Times News Service