A farewell to Armitage: Colin Powell's departure has been much discussed. Less so has been his deputy's. But the latter may prove to be the more important move.

WHEN COLIN POWELL ANNOUNCED his resignation as secretary of state on November 15, he didn't just take away the remaining vestiges of foreign-policy centrism from the Bush administration. He also eclipsed the departure of his deputy and best friend, Richard Armitage. With Powell out, hard-liners inside and outside of the administration found themselves victorious, wrote Mike Allen of The Washington Post, because his departure "remov[ed] the administration's most forceful advocate for negotiations and multilateral engagement on such issues as Middle East peace and curbing ...