# Rumsfeld Resigns? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 8, 2006, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581 "2006-11-08T17:56:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2006, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/21 "2006-11-08T20:05:28Z")
[QUOTE=tschild] Looking from the other side of the pond i’m puzzled by the timing of this. Wouldn’t something on the following lines have worked much better for administration and party: - Rumsfeld resigns a few weeks before elections - Leaks say he was pushed, didn’t jump - Republican candidates crow that their criticism made the difference - Further leaks imply everything that went wrong in Iraq was due to Rumsfeldian mismanagement - Republican voters now get hopes that the corner in Iraq will be turned, can now blame Rumsfeld for anything, reconcile voting Republican with previous disillusionment re Iraq - ---- elections ---- (Republicans scrape through) - corner in Iraq is not turned but no matter, the votes are cast - Rumsfeld gets a nice job with someone who owes Bush a favour. I’d have expected any competent electoral engineers (didn’t the Bush administration employ the best of them?) to pull of something like that. So, why hang on to Rumsfeld until it’s too late? [/QUOTE] My take on this 1. stay the course leading up to the election, admit nothing, concede nothing 2. have plan b, it says they had a meeting with gates 2 weeks ago 3. announce it only after senate race produces a tie, or worse 4. there was never a chance that Rummy could last 2 more years with a dem congress, so get your new man in before the senate changes 5. plan b redux, have terms and conditions with gates for your agenda as a condition of nomination. 6. Announce it RIGHT after the election to get the most points for “willingness to work with the new congress.” 7. begin distancing yourself from the mistakes of the sec of defense, “there’ll be new leadership in the pentagon.” ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2006, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/22 "2006-11-08T21:28:30Z")
[QUOTE=tschild] Looking from the other side of the pond i’m puzzled by the timing of this. Wouldn’t something on the following lines have worked much better for administration and party: - Rumsfeld resigns a few weeks before elections - Leaks say he was pushed, didn’t jump - Republican candidates crow that their criticism made the difference - Further leaks imply everything that went wrong in Iraq was due to Rumsfeldian mismanagement - Republican voters now get hopes that the corner in Iraq will be turned, can now blame Rumsfeld for anything, reconcile voting Republican with previous disillusionment re Iraq - ---- elections ---- (Republicans scrape through) - corner in Iraq is not turned but no matter, the votes are cast - Rumsfeld gets a nice job with someone who owes Bush a favour. I’d have expected any competent electoral engineers (didn’t the Bush administration employ the best of them?) to pull of something like that. So, why hang on to Rumsfeld until it’s too late? [/QUOTE] I totally agree that dropping Rumsfeld before the election could have only helped. Since Bush was meeting with Gates on Sunday, it’s clearly been in the works. What in the world could he have been thinking? Bush claimed today that it would have sent a bad message to the troops. But surely he could have reasoned that partially shutting down the “no plan but stay the course” argument on the other side would be a good thing for the troops. Not to mention that his side winning would be (to him at least) a good message to the troops. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2006, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/23 "2006-11-08T22:05:13Z")
Did Bush lie about keeping Rumsfeld on? The press interchange was pretty heated on this point, and Bush’s defense was angry and pretty much illogical/contradictory. As I understand it, he said a week ago that he’d keep Cheney and Rumsfeld on until the end of his term. Now, he claims that it was in the works but they wanted to hold the news until after the elections. When challenged on this, he got flustered and bumbled around, claiming that at the time he hadn’t yet had his “final talks” with anyone. But that seems irrelevant: if it was being considered as a possibility, isn’t telling the American people that Rumsfeld will stay (and announcing Rumsfeld’s departure could well have hurt Republican chances by being seen as a sign of capitulation and weakness), when that’s not true, lying? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2006, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/24 "2006-11-08T22:11:37Z")
Well, I guess the political genius Karl Rove thought it was something like this. 1. We gotta get rid of Rumsfeld. 2. But if we kick him out before the election, we’ll look like pussies. 3. Americans love a winner, they cannot stand a loser. 4. So the key is, never admit you’re in trouble, never admit mistakes, never admit you need to change plans. 5. Stay the course! 6. If we do this, we’ll keep controll of congress. The only question is, was the plan to boot Rumsfeld no matter what, or only to boot Rumsfeld if they lost the election? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2006, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/25 "2006-11-08T22:19:34Z")
[QUOTE=Apos] As I understand it, he said a week ago that he’d keep Cheney and Rumsfeld on until the end of his term. Now, he claims that it was in the works but they wanted to hold the news until after the elections. [/QUOTE] I was surprised when he said that. I thought he had said Rumsfeld would stay. There’s really no way to read it other than “I thought the truth was politically inconvenient, so I lied.” ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2006, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/26 "2006-11-08T22:26:55Z")
On the flip side, if Rumsey resigned the weekend before the vote, it might have looked like the Republicans were panicking. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2006, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/27 "2006-11-08T23:24:02Z")
[QUOTE=Marley23] I was surprised when he said that. I thought he had said Rumsfeld would stay. [/QUOTE] [Bush Gives Rumsfeld Vote of Confidence, Says He’ll Stay on Job to End of Term](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,226829,00.html) > [@](#): > > Wednesday, November 01, 2006 (Fox News) > President Bush gave Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld an unequivocal vote of confidence Wednesday, saying he would remain in the job until the end of Bush’s presidency, a pointed response to Democrats — and Republicans — who have called for Rumsfeld’s resignation. > > Bush made the comment during an interview in which he also said Vice President Dick Cheney, whose name has been tossed about in the discussion of possible 2008 Republican presidential contenders, will remain on the job through the end of Bush’s second four-year term in January 2009. Cheney has repeatedly said he will not be a candidate in 2008. > > “Both men are doing fantastic in their jobs,” Bush told reporters. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2006, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/28 "2006-11-08T23:33:03Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] 1. We gotta get rid of Rumsfeld. 2. But if we kick him out before the election, we’ll look like pussies. 3. Americans love a winner, they cannot stand a loser. 4. So the key is, never admit you’re in trouble, never admit mistakes, never admit you need to change plans. [/quote] Yep. That dovetails very well with Bush’s penchance for [never admitting he made any mistakes.](http://select.nytimes.com/2006/11/06/opinion/06krugman.html) [QUOTE=Lemur866] The only question is, was the plan to boot Rumsfeld no matter what, or only to boot Rumsfeld if they lost the election? [/QUOTE] No way – if the Republicans didn’t get trounced yesterday, all of the above would have been dismissed as partisan rumormongering from the Dems. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2006, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/29 "2006-11-08T23:37:03Z")
> [@](#): > > “Both men are doing fantastic in their jobs,” Bush told reporters. > [@](#): > > “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job.” Any more? Could we encourage him to praise Gonzales, soon? ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2006, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/30 "2006-11-09T10:41:12Z")
[QUOTE=mlees] On the flip side, if Rumsey resigned the weekend before the vote, it might have looked like the Republicans were panicking. [/QUOTE] My premise is that the state of play for a year or so has been… “I’ll leave whenever you think it is best Mr. President.” That being the case, then recently (weeks or a month or so) either it changed to 1. “I’m leaving, you can’t make me stay.” or 2. “I think it might be getting close to that time, Rummy” I tend to think it was the latter and I’d argue that Bush should have pulled the trigger a few weeks ago when there was plenty of time to make it look less desparate. It could have only helped the chances with those disaffected due to the war and I don’t think it would lose many votes who were totally behind him on the war. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2006, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/31 "2006-11-09T12:29:21Z")
A thought for Rumsfeld: “You know, in certain older, civilized cultures, when men failed as entirely as you have, they would throw themselves on their swords…” ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2006, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/32 "2006-11-09T12:38:03Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] Any more? Could we encourage him to praise Gonzales, soon? [/QUOTE] Hear Hear! ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2006, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/33 "2006-11-09T13:35:37Z")
Allow me to near-quote an Ohio Republican regional leader I was interviewing yesterday: “Damn it, why the hell wasn’t this done two months ago when it would have helped!” Admittedly, I was speaking with him the moment he heard about it. Gotta love those raw reaction moments. ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2006, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/34 "2006-11-09T14:45:00Z")
This is from a non-American, but I think this is a serious political error from the Whitehouse. If they’d waited a couple of weeks it would have been better. Bush is going to need the Congressional Republicans to hang in there. It’s going to be a very tough couple of years. The election results were partly due to Bush and partly to do with Congress (and its oversight of Bush). The message that this sends to Congressional Republicans is that Bush was willing to get rid of Rumsfeld to ease pressure on him, but not on them. It will make it a lot harder for Bush to persuade Congressional Republicans to fight in his corner and a lot more tempting for Congressional Republicans to appeal to the high ground and blame all the woes of the Party on Bush and his team. This is a recipe for internecine conflict in the GOP. It’s going to be some show. ---
**Author:** ![zuma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9c0ed/32.png) [@zuma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zuma)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2006, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/35 "2006-11-09T15:14:20Z")
Yes, Bush lied about Rummy being kept on. What would you expect him to do? And Rumsfeld was fired. This is a big change in the administration, and Bush is not an idiot. The neocons are dead. Buried. Cheney is the only one left. And he’s been emasculated. Cheyney is now a non-entity. Bush has very wisely thrown his weight to the conservatives. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2006, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/36 "2006-11-09T15:24:19Z")
[QUOTE=hawthorne] This is from a non-American, but I think this is a serious political error from the Whitehouse. If they’d waited a couple of weeks it would have been better. Bush is going to need the Congressional Republicans to hang in there. It’s going to be a very tough couple of years. The election results were partly due to Bush and partly to do with Congress (and its oversight of Bush). The message that this sends to Congressional Republicans is that Bush was willing to get rid of Rumsfeld to ease pressure on him, but not on them. It will make it a lot harder for Bush to persuade Congressional Republicans to fight in his corner and a lot more tempting for Congressional Republicans to appeal to the high ground and blame all the woes of the Party on Bush and his team. This is a recipe for internecine conflict in the GOP. It’s going to be some show. [/QUOTE] I like this analysis. America desperately needs the Moderate republicans and the Fiscal Conservative to disavow Bush and his religious right cronies in the houses. The Social Conservative need top be removed from party leadership roles for America to get back on course. Jim ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2006, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/37 "2006-11-09T15:47:32Z")
[QUOTE=What Exit?] America desperately needs the Moderate republicans… [/QUOTE] Are there any of those left in congress? I thought they got hammered pretty hard on tuesday. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2006, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/38 "2006-11-09T16:11:52Z")
Interesting point of view, **tschild** , and others have already addressed the Bush administration’s adamant refusal to look facts in the face. The latest election has to be a tremendous wake-up call for the President, because his wranglers can no longer stroke his ego and say, “Yes, the American people are with you, you were elected twice! That means you have a mandate! Now keep reading these speeches we give you.” Up until this point, Bush may well have been convinced that God was going to miraculously hand him his election, again, and he (Bush) would be free to complete his Crusade of the End Times and defeat evil everywhere, etc. If you look at it that way, he nearly always **has** squeaked out a victory where pundits predicted his defeat. He hasn’t ever **lost** , at least in recent memory. Bush is waking up to the idea that maybe he’s not as in touch with what the people want as he thought he was. I see the Rumsfeld thing as a classic case of “plan for the worst, hope for the best.” Their retreat strategy was laid out. In fact, they can now say, “We got rid of Rumsfeld because the Democratic victory made us! See, that’s why Iraq is a mess, it’s all the Democrats’ fault.” ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2006, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/39 "2006-11-09T16:21:38Z")
[QUOTE=Squink] Are there any of those left in congress? I thought they got hammered pretty hard on tuesday. [/QUOTE] I am not sure, there are some Senators left. Moderate Republican Congressman are probably in short supply. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2006, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581/40 "2006-11-09T16:49:30Z")
[QUOTE=zuma] Yes, Bush lied about Rummy being kept on. What would you expect him to do? [/QUOTE] I didn’t expect him to admit it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rumsfeld-resigns/379581.md?page=3)