Here’s a news story that is likely to create significant bitterness in some Republican circles towards the already politically-jumped-the-shark Bush administration:
Donald H. Rumsfeld, who came to symbolize the Bush administration’s problems in the war in Iraq, resigned as secretary of defense one day before last fall’s elections, although President Bush did not announce the move until the day after the elections.
The White House confirmed on Wednesday that Rumsfeld’s letter of resignation was dated Nov. 6, 2006, the day before voters — many of them furious about the war in Iraq — evicted Republicans from the leadership of the House and Senate.
Deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino said that Bush received the letter and accepted Rumsfeld’s resignation on Election Day. The president waited until the next day to announce that he was replacing Rumsfeld with former CIA chief Robert M. Gates.
Bush said that the decision to oust Rumsfeld had come after a series of conversations with the then-defense secretary. That revelation angered many Republicans who thought GOP electoral losses would have been reduced if Rumsfeld had been removed earlier.
“If Rumsfeld had been out, you bet it would have made a difference,” Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said at the time. “I’d still be chairman of the Judiciary Committee.”
The White House’s response to this story asks thinking Americans to believe that Mr. Bush had no idea Mr. Rumsfeld was going to resign and got the letter written just out of the blue on election day.
And it gets worse.
As the Washington Post piece and any search of Bush’s statements before the election show, Bush was hanging tough on keeping Rumsfeld. Even BEFORE today’s revelation that Rumsfeld had in fact resigned before the elections many Republicans were bitter because Bush insisted on keeping him on — and then right after the elections suddenly announced that Rumsfeld was leaving to spend more time with his family.
And it gets EVEN WORSE.
Bush’s credibility which is now down so far that a “Welcome To The South Pole” sign is visible and it is now FURTHER decimated by the fact he had told reporters he DID NOT KNOW Rumsfeld was going to resign. USA Today’s On Deadline blog:
Asked about the timing of that statement, Bush said a group of reporters: 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.
The truth of the matter is, as well — I mean, that’s one reason I gave the answer, but the other reason why is I hadn’t had a chance to visit with Bob Gates yet, and I hadn’t had my final conversation with Don Rumsfeld yet at that point.
This is likely to accentuate a feeling among Congressional Republicans that Bush and Karl Rove were out for Bush and Karl Rove — and that they were had.
But this story has a far more profound and troubling significance.
Unless you believe the account that Bush had NO IDEA that his Secretary of Defense had written him a letter before the election, it suggests that GWB didn’t want to accept the resignation because it would seem as if he was caving into his critics before an election. He wanted to appear steadfast. But after the election, when the enormity of his party’s loss and Karl Rove’s bad advance “math” became evident, he accepted it. So pride seemed to trump a wise policy (in this case political) decision.
The result: a slew of political casualties for the GOP as many angry voters (in this case, Democrats across the boards joined in coalition by a large number of independents and some Republicans) left the GOP fold because they felt it was the only way to send the White House a message (which it did…which resulted in the surge…)
And it gets yet worse, worse… worse. The AP:
The word “Iraq” doesn’t appear in former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation letter. Neither does the word “war.” In fact, the deadly and much-criticized conflict that eventually drummed him out of office, comes up only in vague references, such as “a critical time in our history” and “challenging time for our country,” in the four-paragraph, 148-word letter he wrote to President Bush a day before the Nov. 7, 2006 election.
According to a stamp on the letter, Bush’s office acknowledged receipt the next day, as voters were going to the polls. Bush announced Rumsfeld’s departure a day later, after the massive anti-war vote that swept Democrats into control of the House and Senate.
The elusive letter – which the Pentagon denied existed as recently as April – surfaced this week in response to multiple Freedom of Information Act requests by The Associated Press.
The Lone Star Times blog reflects the anger and words that are likely being spoken now in many GOP quarters:
[This] story again reminds us of the contempt with which the Bush Administration has come to view the conservative Republicans who put him into office and kept him there. To him, announcing Rumsfeld’s resignation would have been a sign of weakness, an admission that somebody else might have a point, however modest, about the need for a new approach. Such was the level of Presidential hubris that he was willing to gamble on the outcome – in effect sacrificing both houses of Congress to the opposing party – rather than prove his opponents right.
I don’t think it can be credibly argued that announcing Rumsfeld’s departure before the election would have lost as many votes as did the President’s one-fingered salute to those even well-intentioned supporters of change. How many here would have changed their votes if Rumsfeld resigned, let’s say, on November 1? And, if the President truly felt that a pre-election resignation would do more harm than good, than he had lost all perspective on the real world by that time. (We should have known this when he and Karl Rove kept insisting that the GOP would do “just fine†at the polls last fall.)
So, another day, another painful reminder of the lost promise of G. W. Bush. In record time, he managed to squander even the capital of a clear-cut election win in 2004 (in contrast to the bitterly disputed 2000 contest), and send his supporters packing in droves.
All because he came to believe in his own Imperial Presidency – we were just the pawns who got him there.
This is all part and parcel of an administration that has a credibility gap that far exceeds the infamous credibility gaps of the LBJ and Nixon administrations. It will likely mean that more than ever any Republican who genuinely wants to be elected to the White House must show independence from the Bush administration.
But it also means that for the duration of his term George Bush is going to be mistrusted more tan ever — by many Republicans.
Consensus is making a comeback, after all…
SOME MORE WEBLOG OPINION:
—Greenlee Gazette:
It’s all in the timing, I guess. One has to wonder what effect it might have had, were this information public at the time. Would people think it was a good thing, and feel reassured about the Republicans? Would Democrats thought it a cheap ploy, and themselves been more energized? Hard to say. In any case, we were misled.
If the President hadn’t played with the timing, Republicans just might have done better in that last election.
The letter was dated November 6, the day before voters, angered by Iraq, went to the polls and tossed Bush ‘s Republican cronies from power in Congress . According to a stamp on the letter, Bush saw it on election day. As we all know, bush didn’t announce the resignation until after the election. Many Republicans blame this for their rout on that day.
Reuters obtained the letter from a U.S. official on Wednesday after the Pentagon in April said it did not have a copy. They had twice before sought access to the letter under the Freedom of Information Act but were told by the Defense Department that it did not have the letter. Defense Department spokesmen had repeatedly refused to release the resignation letter in November 2006.
—The West Virginia Rebel’s Blog:
To paraphrase Michael Corleone, “Everytime I wanted out, Bush kept me back in.”
…..Another short-sighted move on Bush’s part. If Rumsefeld had quit (or been canned) in the Summer, the GOP might have kept its majority and they might not be facing the downward spiral they are now. As it is, Bush chose to live in denial and the GOP paid the price as a result.
—Wizbang Blue sees this as related to Karl Rove’s resignation:
How deliciously sublime to see Republicans wailing at the screwing they’ve received as a result of White House deceit. Welcome to the G-Damned Club! For once, you are feeling the pain ordinary Americans have been feeling for a long time.
But can there be any doubt that there is a connection between today’s revelation and Karl Rove’s resignation?
I don’t doubt it for a second. The decision to hold onto this letter and not announce until after the polls had closed is pure Rovian politics.
In this situation, with the election looming, Bush would turn to Rove immediately, and I have absolutely no doubt that Rove recommended hiding Rumsfeld’s resignation, and waiting until after the election to make the announcement.
And now Republicans are outraged…
And lo and behold, Rove is gone from the White House.
If I’m correct, then the outcome of the pivotal 2006 election — the election that marks the return of Democratic control of Congress and set the stage for the fall of the White House in 2008 — backfired on the Republicans as the result of a Karl Rove decision.
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.