I smelled a decomposing rat and found it.       

WASHINGTON – It makes for powerful imagery – an editorial appearing in the Army Times, the Navy Times, the Marine Times and the Air Force Times calling for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Many assume these publications are official or semi-official periodicals of the military branches, while they are actually under the same ownership as USA Today and under the management of an editor who has had his share of run-ins with the U.S. military in the past.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said the president has shrugged off an editorial by the Military Times Media Group to fire Rumsfeld. Bush feels it is merely "grandstanding," he added. The editorial says Rumsfeld has "lost credibility" with top officers.

Snow called the editorial "a caricature" and a "shabby piece of work" filled with inaccuracies. He said it implied the administration's made nothing but "rosy" predictions about Iraq. Snow said that isn't true, leading the president to "shrug it off."

Shortly after Gannett bought the papers in 1997, the media giant installed as editor Robert Hodierne. He is best known for teaming up in 1969 with then-Associated Press reporter Peter Arnett in Vietnam to bring attention to a small group of American soldiers who refused to fight.

As he tells the story himself: "During that late August battle, A.P. reporter Peter Arnett and photographer Horst Faas filed a story about five G.I.s who, for a brief time, refused to fight. A few days later I arrived at the battle to write stories and shoot photos for Pacific Stars & Stripes.

"The story and photos that follow enraged the top brass in the Army. Its chief spokesman, Col. James Campbell, calling Stripes 'the Hanoi Herald,' said my writing gave aid and comfort to the enemy, adding, 'such stories do not border on treason, they are treason.'"

The editorials were timed to come out in all four publications simultaneously today – the final Sunday before the midterm congressional elections.