Via CNN: Rumsfeld quitting as defense secretary
President Bush announced Wednesday that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is stepping down from his post.“The timing is right for new leadership at the Pentagon,” Bush said at the White House Wednesday afternoon.
I haven’t had time to digest all this, but find that quote remarkable, given the Presiden’t statements just last week.
Surely this announcement would have been helpful to the GOP before yesterday.
I was doing an intereview for al.com and not have to go to class, so substantial commentary on this will have to wait. However, I am with James Joyner on this:
I have the news conference on and Bush is giving perhaps the worst performance I’ve ever seen from him, which is quite an accomplishment. Indeed, it comes across eerily similar to the Saturday Night Live parodies of Bush speeches.He essentially told a reporter that he had lied last week when asked if Rummy would be going “because that was the only way to get you on to the next question.” Quite bizarre.
Even worse, the suggestion he didn’t want to make this announcement earlier because there was an election coming up. Hello! Major changes in course are something that one might want to mention to voters–especially voters who think the present course is a bad one. I’m simply baffled.
He makes a fair point that one doesn’t want to send the signal that he’s making major tactical decisions for political reasons. Still, the war in Iraq is the most significant public policy issue of the Bush administration.
Note: I haven’t heard the press conference yet, so can’t vouch for that part of his assessment, but quoted it for context.
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November 8th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
This was Bush’s explanation for his statements from last week:
No, you and Hunt and Keil came in the Oval Office, and Hunt asked me the question one week before the campaign, and basically it was, are you going to do something about Rumsfeld and the Vice President? And my answer was, they’re going to stay on. And the reason why is I didn’t want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign. And so the only way to answer that question and to get you on to another question was to give you that answer.”
It is a pretty clear admission of lying to reporters.
Even more crazy, is what he says later in the conference. A reporter, trying to clarify what he meant asked:
Can I just start by asking you to clarify, sir, if, in your meeting with Steve and Terry and Dick, did you know at that point you would be making a change on Secretary Rumsfeld?
Bush’s response:
No, I did not.
This is very confusing. He had a conversation with reporters where Rumsfeld’s future came up, he said that he misled the public because he “didn’t want to inject a major decision about this war” before the election but then two seconds later, he claimed that he had not made a major decision about the war last week.
This makes no sense. This type of bald faced lying makes everything the man says uncredible.
Let’s hope that the new Congress starts to actually do the job of oversight so the public can understand what is going on with an executive that is pretty clearly out of control and delusional.
November 8th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
In all fairness, Bush can say he didn’t *know* because Gates hadn’t accepted.
Of a piece with his response to whether he had a plan to invade Iraq “on his desk.” Why, no!
November 8th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
Rumsfeld Resigns!!
I do wonder about the timing of this announcement. . .
November 8th, 2006 at 7:25 pm
Somehow I knew this would happen
November 9th, 2006 at 8:26 am
I was stunned when I saw that yesterday, and I truly do not understand why he didn’t do that before the election.
November 9th, 2006 at 9:39 am
I am utterly baffled by the whole thing.