lieu’s actually got it right. I’ve known since August that Rummy was stepping down one way or another (insider info, given my job in the political consulting arena). They were just hoping for a better election result so they could not only retain their control, but come off looking like heroes for “doing the right thing.” Unfortunately for them, they didn’t get either result they wanted.
No I am not. I was pointing out why Pres. Clinton’s particular lie regarding sex with an intern was potentially impeachable and Pres. Bush’s lie about Rumsfeld’s disposition was not. I’m not here to defend either Pres. Clinton or Pres. Bush in any way, shape, or form.
**Poly, **
I am not singling you out, just simply curious about the above statement, not only because I’ve heard it so much over the past 48 hours or so, but, because as you say, even Pelosi is of the same opinion – along with almost all other Dem politicians I’ve listened to. Question is, if starting a murderous war with literally countless of casualties under false pretenses and factually proven to be cherry-picked intelligence, is not an impeachable crime, what in the name of High Heavens, is?
Why are so many of you (in the opposition) so eager to give the people responsible a free pass?
Perplexed.
What really gets me about this is that Bush’s initial statement - that he was keeping Rummy on - probably helped mobilize more anti-Republican sentiment and damaged the Republican’s chance of holding the Senate. Bush just could have said “Who can tell what the future will hold?” and walked away clean. It might have been ambivalent enough to keep Allen in the lead in Virginia.
So:
-
Bush, when backed into a corner, says the first thing that comes to his mind, and doesn’t care if it’s the truth
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Bush has no idea how people felt about Rummy or what the impact of his words would be.
I’ll go with the second. However, the last thing that would have happened had he said, “Who can tell what the future will hold?” or any other interpretable statement would have been the president walking away clean.
Actually, neither of those is true. See my previous post just above. Rumsfeld’s resignation has been planned and in the bag since at least August – long before Bush was asked that question. Waiting until after the elections to make the official announcement was pure strategy. They really and truly thought they would keep scaring the populace into keeping them all in power, just like they’ve always been successful doing in the past. They overestimated their Mad Campaign Skilz. They’ve allowed their egos to become so overinflated due to win after win after win, that they honestly couldn’t see the writing on the wall that sane, intelligent people could see a mile away. They really are that stupid.
Hmm, let me respond using your exact same technique:
Actually, both are true. Read my post.
What kind of response is that, anyway? Geez.
I’m with Leviosaurus, Shayna. Bush didn’t care that he was lying, because ‘he had a plan’. Bush didn’t realize the impact, because he thought he was going to win.
I call “bullshit” on your “insider info.” If this move caught every political pundit in the news media by surprise, allow me to doubt that you have better sources than say…CNN’s Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre. Or for that matter, even the Top Military Brass.
Surely if what you say is true, it would have leaked long ago.
<shrug> Call “bullshit” all you want. Sometimes meetings and private dinners at people’s homes really are closely held enough that big media people don’t find out about them, but personal friends do. Funny thing is, I composed a post about it back when I learned it, but decided against posting it precisely because I figured no one would believe me anyway. So be it. That doesn’t make it any less true.
Ah yes, the call of the internet. “I call bullshit”, “I call shenanigans” and so on. We all know that every last detail, both large and small, gets immediately leaked, and that no administration has any idea of operational security and how to avoid keeping information from being released.
Actually, I was standing right next to you at those private meetings, and I didn’t come away with the same impression at all. You might have noticed me. I was crouching behind the ice sculpture. (D_Odds, weren’t you there too? I thought I saw you hiding in the chandelier.)
Regardless, even if everything you say is true, it doesn’t invalidate either of my points.
Why would you care if nobody believed you, when circumstances would have shown you to be correct?
I don’t know, I was probably not in the mood for a pissing match or to be “called bullshit” on or whatever at the time. I compose a lot of posts that I think better of hitting ‘Submit’ on for one reason or another (and quite a few that I should have thought better of before posting, I admit). Despite how it may appear, some days I’m simply not in the mood for an argument. That doesn’t make whatever I was about to post untrue, it just means I decided against posting it, and there doesn’t have to be any better reason than, “Meh, let’s just not go there right now.” I don’t think my work in the political consulting arena has ever been called into question in my 7 years of posting here, but if you’d rather not believe that I knew about this back in August, well, OK. I can’t prove it to you, so by all means, feel free to dismiss me.
Whose brilliant idea was it to wait on the resignation, if it was planned? It seems in retrospect many would-be fence-sitters or even Republican voters cast their ballots for Dem. candidates to punish Bush for, among other things, retaining Rumsfeld despite him having about the lowest approval rating of anyone in the administration. If it was really so easy to just drop him, the timing couldn’t have been worse for the Republican party.
Ahh, but happening now it makes Bush look responsive to the will of the people.
Legacy dude, Legacy!
I understand why Bush didn’t want to fire Rummy before the election because that would have added more negativity to the atmosphere and given the impression that there was in-house fighting going on. Granted, it’s also possible that it would have made him look good, but that’s hard to say. He has gotten much mileage out of being The Decisive Decider. So perhaps he decided to wait instead of take a gamble.
But if he knew that Rummy was going to be let go in the near future, he should have simply found a better way to deflect questions or given some non-answers. Because he chose the easy way out, his messed up on both sides. To many Republicans, he looks like he is capitulating to the pressures of his new Democratic overlords. To many Democrats, he looks like a liar.
To the folks in the middle (like myself), he looks like a guy who just doesn’t what the hell he is saying or doing. This is an another example of him being an incompetent politician moreso than a liar.
Responsive! Hee! Kind of like a drunk driver getting tasered is responsive! 
Shocking. Positively shocking.
Well, I’m on the left rather than the middle, but I agree wholeheartedly. If this was in the works for months (and it certainly has been discussed for months), then Bush could have arranged behind the scenes for the House and Senate Republicans to call for Rumsfeld’s resignation. It might have given them the edge in this mid-term election, and done no real harm to a lame duck presidency. And it would have mollified those in the military who have been calling for this very thing. This is a trump card that was thrown away. Karl Rove is clearly off his game.