Touche.
Still, he’s lower-echelon than the Cabinet member.
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.
Good on you kaylasdad99 for that decisive response!
America despises flip-floppers, and you sir are no flip-flopper. 
What the hell does Rumsfeld do if they don’t have enough initiative to find out what the fuck goes on under their watch? Rumsfeld heard about these abuse allegations back in January, did he even lift a finger to investigate them? :mad:
I don’t think President Bush has a clue. In his last press conference he explicitly claimed that despite the failure to establish order in parts of Iraq, and to find weapons of mass destruction; at least we put an end to Saddam’s “torture chambers and rape rooms”. Now we know our folks just put them under new management.
I don’t have a great deal of confidence in John Kerry at this point. But I am conviced that our current president in not in control. I really don’t think he is a bad person, nor truly stupid. I am a Texn, and I generally thought hed did a fine job as governor. But no way in hell will I, or anyone I know (this is my Pauline Kael moment) vote for him at this point. He is leading us to ruin.
Kerry can win this thing if Nader doesn’t get more than one per cent.
…of course I am hardly one to judge communication skills. Don’t drink and post.
I can’t believe that Bush didn’t know about the pictures. I’m not a fan of the man but he runs an extremely tight organization. That isn’t a slam, by the way, just an observation. He hasn’t been plagued by the kinds of leaks and careless snafus per Clinton, for example.
Even without that tight an organization, it simply isn’t how goverment runs, on any level. First law for long-term survival: never let Da Big Boss find out problems from outsiders. Politicos loathe suprises, much less getting outright sandbagged. They may be unhappy with a problem but it’s fatal to let them be caught unawares, flatfooted, pants down, no spin prepared.
That said, there’s also a fine old govermental tradition of taking the fall for Da Big Boss. Any underling is a potential scapegoat. That’s just the way of it. A high level functionary will take the public blame, but will be actually fired only as a last resort. You can gauge the distance from power–and actual responsiblity–by the ease of firing. Those possessing the fewest awkward facts and details will be the first to actually get clobbered with firing, prosecution, etc.
Business as usual.
Nasty business, but purely routine in how it’s being handled.
You can’t take heat from something you didn’t know about. You simply direct the heat to underlings.
There really isn’t any heat from him appearing to be in the dark about issues he should know about. A couple of sqawks that will die out quickly.
So, yeah, he knew about it a long time before the news media did.
To paraphrase the opening of Mission Impossible If you’re caught the secretary will disavow any knowledge of you mission.
My theory is that President Bush was given a report on the torture situation but decided not to actually read it because it was longer than 2 pages.
Uh, it’s pretty undisputed that bush DID know earlier: about the abuse at least. He may not have seen the photos, but he was told about the investigation and the allegations of abuse. It’s not clear whether or not he was told that there were photos. But that’s a matter of being shocked at bad PR for himself, not being shocked by the allegations: which were not new to his ears.
It’s not Bush’s fault. He’s just a bad CEO: blame the stockholders.
Good points all, TVeblen, but I think you misunderstand me. I’m not saying I believe “Da Big Boss” was unaware of the pictures. I’m saying I believe Dubya is a sock, and not the real “Da Big Boss” at all.
Agreed, even with him as the beard, sandbagging, pantslessness, and flat-footedness has befallen this administration. I have no doubt that events will move forward pretty much in line with your prognosis.
I forgot who first mentioned this, but when the US forces took control of Baghdad, we made a big show of renaming the various locations to signify the change in Iraq – “Saddam International Airport” became “Baghdad International Airport,” the “Saddam Mosque” was renamed to “The Al Rahman mosque,” etc.
…except for Abu Ghurayb. That prison, we left alone. Didn’t even bother to board up the place, much less tear it down.
And people wondered why the Iraqis didn’t believe us when we said we were there to liberate them.
True, but it is entirely possible that Rumsfeld, owing to his almost psychotic disconnect with reality, looked at the pictures and had a giggle over them. He honestly might not have grasped their moral significance.
This is the least damning explanation. But even then you have to worry about a president who would bring in somebody as deluded as Rumsfeld and then stick by him so steadfastly. You can almost admire his loyalty; but the ability to make key personnel decisions is kind of important, particularly for a president, no? And his personnel decisions seem to be to drive out his best people (because their not his buddies) and keep his least talented (because they are).
Compare that to the first tangible action during the French Revolution, the one that made the people really feel they had taken control of their own country and their own future: They tore down the Bastille. If the end of the USSR had been more chaotic, I don’t doubt that the Lubyanka would be a vacant lot now, either.
But we haven’t let the Iraqis, other than the Kurds who’ve been functionally independent for years, do anything to give themselves a sense of nationhood - except perhaps to unite in driving out the foreigners.
Dunno about that. While I agree that they run an administration that is very HOSTILE to leaks or criticism from loyal internal soldiers, three have been leaks aplenty. Heck, someone leaked hundreds of pages of documents for Suskind’s book. Someone leaked the memo in which the FBI basically has the facts of evidence to convict Karl Rove of wrongdoing in the Palme affair, and wasn’t sure how to proceed given how political indicting him might be. These photos are leaks (possibly from the defense lawyer of one of the six men currently facing charges). There are leaks all over the place and always have been.
It’s worse than that. It got looted and stripped after the invasion. We fixed it up again to use as a prison, so it’s more like the French revolutionaries rebuilding the Bastille.
Remember the International Red Cross reported abuses last year. I actually believe Bush didn’t know - he has made it very clear he doesn’t want to get a lot of information, and who would have the guts to bother the boss with something like this. It’s not like he’s going to snoop around asking questions, after all.
They’ve got such a mindset of the inner crowd can do no wrong that Rummy won’t be asked to resign until the polls say so - which they don’t yet. (The latest ABC poll showed relatively small support for him resigning.) If Bush were a real leader, any underling who would not tell him about this bomb would be out in a minute.
Maybe Cheney is preventing Bush from firing him?
Junior knew about and approved of the torture, because Powell told him about it. Bush’s only concern was the photographs, which Rumsfeld may or may not have told Junior about.
Bush probably fobbed Powell off with one of his little down-home Texan sayings, like “can’t make omelets without fucking a few 12 year old boys up the ass”.