Folks who should know better, like Steve Gilliard, are gleefully piling on a story from New York about an IBM executive who was fired because his Reserve commitment rendered him worthless to the company after September 11.

The story, by columnis Denis Hamill (left) is a righteous bust. IBM is going to lose the suit. IBM deserves to lose the suit. And the only reason I get to write about this at all is because IBM is a tech company.

But the issue goes deeper than any one employer.

Since 9/11 the Bush Administration has turned the Guards and Reserves into regular army, while outsourcing every possible kind of easy duty to its private contractor buddies. (One result is that the troops don't get fed when the action gets hot, because the contractors bug-out of re-supply operations.)

Readiness is dead. The military is being systematically hollowed-out. America's days as a great power are sunsetting. No one with an ounce of sense is going to ever join the Guards or Reserves again thinking it's weekends, vacations, and stay out of trouble, as it was when George W. Bush himself "served." (And that's as charitable as even his staunchest supporters can put it.)

This Administration is running the Army on the backs of private employers, for the benefits of other private employers who are its friends. It's as corrupt as any African dictatorship or medieval fiefdom.

They continue to get away with it through articles like Denis Hamill's that focus on the victims of this policy, like Michael Warren, and paint other victims, like IBM, as victimizers.

Point the finger where it belongs, on deliberate Administration policy.

That's where the buck stops. Nowhere else.