(no subject)

[sraun]

[Poll #863329]

Comments

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

What I don't get is the timing; they might have saved the senate (from their point of view) if they'd done this *last* week.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

But last week, they knew they weren't going to lose the Senate.

[ckd]

Of course they weren't going to lose; they were going to be greeted as liberators. Everyone knows that.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

My guess is a little of both. It's clear Rummy had to go: when the generals and the grunts say the leadership is bad, the sword gets handed over or else there's a revolt among the troops. He's made money for Halliburton, so he can retire to a life of... well, he might get charged with war crimes, but he'll be sipping champaign.

On the political side, this announcement is the first shot across the bow of the new Democratic controlled senate: They were elected in large part due to their opposition to the Iraq War. Now, they will be on record as voting for (or against) the new guy who will run it. The GOP candidate in 2008 can use that vote as a political cudgel, as Bush used the Dems support of the resolution on Iraq,

[welshbard.livejournal.com]

Rumsfeld is falling on his sword, but the next resignations will be rats. Two years left, two months of lame ducks, and then hostile Congress. Time for more cabinet secretaries to leave. My guess is that over the next six months we'll see two more go. Just going by roles and not people, I'd say Commerce and something else lower-level and corporate-leaning, like Treasury or EPA?

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that he's tried to resign twice before, and that Bush rejected the resignation; if so, it may just be that yesterday's events were what finally drove home to Bush the need for him to resign. That doesn't quite fit either of your possibilities, unfortunately.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

I figure Bush has been frantically trying to avoid the circus of new SecDef confirmation hearings.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Hmm... Now that I think about it, that sounds right. Hearings so soon before the election could have caused difficulties at the polls - although I doubt they'd have been worse for Bush than what has actually happened.

[azurelunatic]

as in "No you don't, you rat -- wait until this BS is over?"

[xinef.livejournal.com]

I voted for sword, but I still think he's a rat! :)

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

We'll know more when Rumsfeld's book is published.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Announcing the replacement at the same time as the resignation says "sword" to me.

[sraun]

To me, it says 'we knew this a while ago, we just didn't want to announce it'. It doesn't really say anything about who's idea it was.

[sunlizzard.livejournal.com]

I believe that was actually said, maybe in the news conference? At any rate, I heard a snippet on NPR on the way home yesterday: GWB admitting that he had avoided answering a direct question asked last week re Rummy, deliberately so as not to stir up yet another brouhaha that close to the elections. The news cycles have not exactly been friendly to the R's these last several weeks, after all, so why just hand the Ds a plum like that?!

My two centavos: I think GWB is actually relieved at this point. He did his R "duty" by playing to the base, supporting all the R candidates (any who'd have him on their hustings, that is *schnort*) and doing what he could to hang on to the R majority in Congress. So he can say now, and truthfully, "I did all I could, but the people have spoken differently" and so change course. I mean, really--what could the neocons DO to him now? Not support his next campaign? No campaign! Not support his veep in the traditional foregone-conclusion next candidate? He's not running! (Thank goodness.)

To me, it's not just the country's voters who've thrown off (or have well begun to) the heavy hand of the far right agenda; this president has just been enabled to throw it off himself as well. The way I see it, the neocon powerbase just got waaaaaay diluted. It's now useless to pressure this prez; not that there won't be some effort to, but they've just really lost the last handle they had on him. The point at which I became convinced that this might be the case? When he was asked if the shift in Congress meant his immigration policies might get another chance, and this time win? He just smiled and said, "Yep."

HA. If that happens, I will go to my knees giving thanks for every person who had the courage and the compassion to fix one of the greatest injustices this country still sanctions. I may be going against the grain of the folks hanging out here, but one of the people whose compassion and courage I'll give thanks for will be the Prez. On this issue. Yes.

[rmeidaking.livejournal.com]

I think he was given the option to resign before he could be indicted. The administration will now argue that he shouldn't be called to testify, nor prosecuted based on what others will say. There may have even been a plea bargain (or its moral equivalent) worked out. IMO. Nancy Pelosi implied tonight that she wasn't planning to subpoena or impeach anyone - boo, hiss.

The confirmation hearings for Robert Gates should be fun.