(We’ve moved this up in order due to updates. Newer posts are below so keep scrolling)
It sounds like it going be Stay The Course in a key spot in the administration:
President Bush said Wednesday he wants Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney to remain in his administration until the end of his presidency, extending a job guarantee to two of the most criticized members of his team.
The case could be made that unless there was some earth-shattering development, a President will stay with his Vice President. But when he says he wants Rumsfeld to stay the next two years he’s ruling out changing the person who holds the appointed Defense Secretary’s post — and Bus has just provided many Americans — including Republicans — a good reason to cast an unmistakeable protest vote on Tuesday.
UPDATE: A later article contains more of his praise of Rumsfeld:
Democrats and Republicans alike have called for Rumsfeld’s resignation, arguing he has mishandled the war in Iraq where more than 2,800 members of the U.S. military have died since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Cheney has faced sharp criticism for his hardline views and is viewed favorably by only about a third of Americans in polls. Bush said that “both men are doing fantastic jobs.”
….Bush credited Rumsfeld with overseeing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while overhauling the military. “I’m pleased with the progress we’re making,” the president said.
Andrew Sullivan just nailed it on CNN: “This is no longer an election. It’s an intervention...”
UPDATE II: Sullivan is even more blunt on his Time-hosted weblog. Here’s just one blunt quote:
The president, in other words, has just proved that he is utterly unhinged from reality, in a state of denial truly dangerous for the world. He needs an intervention. Think of this election as an intervention against a government in complete denial and capable of driving the West off a cliff. You can’t merely abstain now. Bush just raised the stakes. And he must be stopped.
Of course, there are those who may not feel as strongly. But he is correct in the key point: Bush has now framed this election as a referendum on him, the
effectiveness of war policy and Rumsfeld. Those who don’t want Rumsfeld to continue now know they only chance they’ll have is for some kind of countervailing force to clamor for his exit. Would that be the same kind of GOP Congress?
If the GOP loses, the Bush administration’s wings will be clipped — most likely with the help of some Republicans who are upset about what they see as well. If the GOP wins, it will be taken as an endorsement of the kind of government we now have and the players who guide it will continue in place…and become more entrenched in power in key bureaucracies that matter.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.