Certainly Not the Best Advisors

Following reports that the would-be Republican’t candidates for president in 2016 have been looking to members of George W. Bush’s failed administration for advice on foreign policy, Steve Benen of The Maddow Blog had this to say:

House Republicans sought out Dick Cheney for guidance on foreign policy, as if he has some credibility on the issue. Condoleezza Rice is lecturing Americans on why she wants us to get over our war “weariness.” And 2016 candidates are making a concerted effort to “court” Donald Rumsfeld, as if associating with him will bolster their national aspirations.

Perhaps now would be a good time to point out some inconvenient details: these folks were wrong about everything. Their decisions brought deadly, catastrophic consequences. To pretend that these people have something worthwhile to offer in the areas of foreign policy and/or global leadership is to pretend reality simply has no meaning.

Put it this way: in 1940, were Republican presidential hopefuls courting Hoover’s economic team? I rather doubt it. So why is Rumsfeld in demand now?

You can read all of Benen’s piece here.

A Matter of Priorities

Blame casting among Republican’ts for their party’s historic defeats on Capitol Hill this week is now lapping hard at the White House. This time it’s because of George W. Bush’s admission that he delayed dumping Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld until after the election.

“The White House said keeping the majority was a priority, but they failed to do the one thing that could have made a difference,” a House GOP leadership aide tells The Hill newspaper. “For them to toss Rumsfeld one day after the election was a slap in the face to everyone who worked hard to protect the majority.”

Read the whole story here.

The Decider Deceives ... Again

I actually managed to sit through most of George W. Bush’s rambling press conference this morning, during which he confirmed press reports that Donald Rumsfeld--the architect, with Bush and Dick Cheney, of America’s incompetent Iraq war strategy—would be stepping down as Defense Secretary, to be replaced by former CIA director Robert Gates. And I was struck most by a couple of the prez’s statements:

• He continues to be bewildered, or at least feign bewilderment in public, over why Americans would ever think that his war-making policies in the Middle East are inflexible and unlikely to be changed, even by informed and sympathetic criticism. “Somehow it seeped in their conscious that my attitude was just simply ‘stay the course,’” an exasperated Bush remarked to the reporters at one point. “‘Stay the course’ means, let’s get the job done, but it doesn’t mean staying stuck on a strategy or tactics that may not be working.” Right. This is the same incredible line the White House has been peddling for the last couple of weeks, and people still aren’t buying it. Probably because Bush has said “stay the course” at least dozens of times over the last three years, and not until the statement became a bone of contention during the midterm elections did he give the slightest indication that “stay the course” was simply Bushian shorthand for “I’m as flexible as a $100 whore.”

• The other thing that struck me about today’s press conference was Bush’s concession that he had deliberately lied to a contingent of reporters last week, saying that Rumsfeld and Cheney would “remain with him until the end of his presidency, extending a job guarantee to two of the most-vilified members of his administration.” The prez insisted: “Both those men are doing fantastic jobs and I strongly support them.” But then, just this afternoon, he flip-flopped, admitting that he’d been talking with Rumsfeld for “a period of time” about the latter’s imminent departure from the administration. When asked why he’d deceived reporters, Bush said testily:

… 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.

I had been talking with Don Rumsfeld over a period of time about fresh perspective. He likes to call it fresh eyes. He, himself, understands that Iraq is not working well enough, fast enough. And he and I are constantly assessing. And I’m assessing, as well, all the time, by myself, about, do we have the right people in the right place, or do we--got the right strategy? As you know, we’re constantly changing tactics. And that requires constant assessment.

And so he and I both agreed in our meeting yesterday that it was appropriate that I accept his resignation. And so the decision was made--actually, I thought we were going to do fine yesterday. Shows what I know. But I thought we were going to be fine in the election. My point to you is, is that, win or lose, Bob Gates was going to become the nominee.

(You’ll find the video here.)

So, the prez knew well before yesterday’s election that Rumsfeld--a cling-strip for criticism from both Democrats and Republicans--had one foot out the door, but he failed to tell anyone outside of his tightest inner circle. Instead, he pulled a “Rummy, you’re doing a heckuva job” routine, forcing GOP incumbents nationwide to defend the beleaguered secretary at the cost of their own jobs, and undercutting other Republican candidates who tried to make the case that they had a chance of convincing Bush to dump Rumsfeld. I’ll bet there are a lot of those folks who weren’t happy with the prez’s shuffling of the cabinet chairs today--one day late.

Nice going, Georgie.

This is the guy who insists that politics doesn’t dictate his decision-making? Hell, Bush is a politician through and through, a man who feels so entitled to his exalted place in society, that he doesn’t think twice about letting the people he’s supposed to be helping jump on their swords for no reason whatsoever.

READ MORE: “Rumsfeld’s Thumpin’,” by Mark Benjamin and Michael Scherer (Salon); “The Press Conference Bush Wanted to Give,” by William Saletan (Slate); “Fall of the House of Kitsch,” by Sidney Blumenthal (Salon).

Mission Botched

[[W A R]] * Of course, today also marks another, much less pleasant anniversary. It was three years ago that George W. Bush--after touching down in his action-figure flight suit on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, and posing beneath a giant “Mission Accomplished” banner--declared an end to “major combat operations” in Iraq, just over a month after the U.S. invasion of that country began. But as we all know now, his declaration was premature. Terribly so. Even now, Americans continue to fight and die in a Middle Eastern nation that was supposed to greet our soldiers as liberators. (As of this afternoon, the U.S. military death toll in Iraq was 2,401.) And a new CNN poll finds that only 9 percent of respondents believe the U.S. mission in Saddam Hussein’s homeland has been accomplished. A much larger 40 percent believe it will be completed someday, while a still greater 44 percent say the mission Bush had in mind will never be accomplished.

The prez and his spinners persist in their contention that significant progress has been made toward a peaceful, democratic Iraq; that “a turning point” in the conflict there is just around the corner; and that these successes are due in significant measure to the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (so what do those retired generals know, anyway?). Yet Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) contended in a dynamic speech today that U.S. forces have suffered in Iraq because of “failed, manipulated intelligence,” “too few troops and no plan to win the peace,” and “a self-described ‘war president’ not ready for the war.” Three years after Bush’s “mission accomplished” photo op, Reid points out that “the number of terrorist attacks has risen sharply around the world. More than 11,000 terrorist attacks occurred worldwide last year--a 250 percent increase from the year before. And Iraq--a country where Osama bin Laden had few in-roads before the war--has become a training ground and launching pad for international terrorism.”

No less regrettable, perhaps: Iraqis, in large part, don’t believe that their lot has improved since the downfall of Saddam. One poll shows 76 percent of Iraqis saying that their security situation is “poor,” and getting worse.

And this whole misadventure, which Bush now intends to leave to his successor to clean up, has cost the United States only $320 billion and the respect of the world community.

What a bargain, eh?

READ MORE: “Mission Accomplished, Three Years Later,” by Tim Grieve (Salon); “Mission Accomplished: Bush Let al-Zarqawi Escape” (Taylor Marsh); “Happy Codpiece Day, Everyone,” by Digby (Hullabaloo); “Bush Should Honor ‘Mission Accomplished Day’ by Resigning,” by Bob Geiger (Democrats.com); “U.S. War Costs Could Hit $881 Billion” (BBC News); “Mission Accomplished: A Look Back at the Media’s Fawning Coverage of Bush’s Premature Declaration of Victory in Iraq” (Media Matters); “Bush of a Thousand Days,” by Frank Rich (The New York Times).

Stars and Stripes and Raspberries

[[L E A D E R S H I P]] * Even as Donald Rumsfeld was making a well-covered but unannounced visit yesterday to beleaguered Baghdad, alongside Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, calls for the defense secretary’s resignation were making the rounds again. Only the demand this time doesn’t come from a retired general (eight of whom have recently agreed that a change of Pentagon leadership is needed). No, this time it’s military personnel insisting that the seemingly endless and deadly course of George W. Bush’s Iraq war is sufficient reason for Rumsfeld’s prompt removal.

As of this morning, a poll conducted by ArmyTimes.com shows 64 percent of respondents saying they’ve had enough of Rumsfeld’s ostensible guidance. Thirty-two percent contend that his missteps in prosecuting the three-year-old Iraq conflict are grounds for him to resign, with less than 4 percent saying they don’t know, or have no opinion on his future. As Raw Story points out, there’s no way to know precisely how many of this poll’s respondents are active or retired U.S. military personnel. However, ArmyTimes.com, which is produced by MilitaryTimes Inc., makes a big deal in its advertising come-on about how the various MilitaryTimes publications now reach “72% of the active duty military market.” So it’s likely that the vast majority of folks participating in this survey have had or do have a military connection of some sort, and are therefore in the habit of checking the offerings at ArmyTimes.com.

Not that objections from the men and women in the line of fire will ever convince Dubya, back in his cozy White House bubble, that he and Rummy have screwed up in Iraq ...

READ MORE: “More Top Brass Blast Rumsfeld,” by Mark Follman (Salon); “Treading Water and Losing Support on Iraq,” by Steve Soto (The Left Coaster); “Just Asking …,” by Christy Hardin Smith (FireDogLake)

Defying the Drumbeat

[[W A R]] * There’s a terrific post over at Daily Kos, written by the pseudonymous Georgia10, that looks at why George W. Bush continues to back his secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, even when generals, one by one, are calling for Rumsfeld’s prompt resignation. I think the author has it right, that Bush can’t let his war minister go without acknowledging that the reasons for Rumsfeld’s ouster--“his absolute failures in managing the war against Saddam in Iraq,” to quote Major General Charles H. Swannack Jr.--are as much his responsibility as they are anybody else’s. Writes Georgia10:

Rumsfeld offered to resign at least twice, yet the President stubbornly refuses to acknowledge Rumsfeld’s failures. This President, who has told us time and time again he will follow the advice of military commanders on the ground, is now ignoring that advice. He is choosing instead to retain an incompetent Secretary of Defense lest the Commander-in-Chief look weak. So intent is the President on ignoring Rumsfeld’s failures, Scott McClellan proclaimed that the President thinks Rumsfeld is doing a “very fine job.” A heck of a job, indeed, Rummy.

AMERICAblog’s John Avarosis piles on, writing that “In any other government, once a leader loses the confidence of so many high-powered fellow leaders, he’d be forced to step down--hell, his own sense of duty would tell him to step down. But not in the Bush administration. Arrogance and rewarding incompetence are virtues in George Bush’s world. Never admit a mistake and keep watching the troops die because of your incompetence.”

The prez thinks, for some reason, that Americans respect leaders who don’t change their minds. But there’s a not very subtle line between determination and denial, and Bush leaped across that ages ago. His obstinacy in the face of evidence contrary to his convictions is likely to cause history to remember him in the same way that it does Lyndon B. Johnson on the issue of the Vietnam War: as wrong and inflexible, rather than right and patiently confident when the rest of the nation was not.

YADDA YADDA: USA Today reports that “Like a man on a treadmill, President Bush has gotten almost nowhere making speeches over the past seven months to boost public support for the war in Iraq.” Since the prez claims that he doesn’t have time enough to observe polling data, the paper brings him up to date on his Sisyphean task:

Shortly before the speeches began in late September, 32% of Americans approved of Bush’s handling of Iraq, according to a Sept. 16-18 USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll.

The rating inched up as high as 39% in the ensuing months, but the latest poll, taken April 7-9, showed that approval had dropped back to 32%.

Analysts say there is little Bush can do except keep talking and hope things improve in Iraq.

“He can’t argue his way to better numbers. He needs favorable results in Iraq. And that’s out of his hands,” says Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta.

With the generally conservative and Bush-friendly Chicago Tribune today joining the chorus of analysts saying that Iraq is “embroiled in what amounts to civil war,” Dubya could be waiting a very long time for the “favorable results” of which Black speaks.

READ MORE: “Replace Rumsfeld,” by David Ignatius (The Washington Post); “What Rumsfeld Knew,” by Michael Scherer and Mark Benjamin (Salon); “White House Defends Rumsfeld’s Tenure,” by Peter Baker (The Washington Post); “The Rummy Mutiny,” by Maureen Dowd (The New York Times); “Black Reconnaissance,” by Digby (Hullabaloo); “Throwing Rummy from the Train,” by Larry Johnson (TPM Café); “Permission to Speak Freely, Sir,” by Stephen Pizzos (AlterNet); “On the Horns of an Iraqi Dilemma,” by Martin Sieff (UPI).

Learning from Experience, At Last

[[L E A D E R S H I P]] * With new reports coming out that George W. Bush deceived the American public about the discovery of mobile “biological laboratories” in Iraq (seen back in 2003 as a vindication of his decision to make war on Saddam Hussein), and at least five retired U.S. military generals now calling for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign over his mishandling of the Iraq conflict, it should come as no surprise that a majority of Americans--54 percent--“‘don’t trust’ Bush to make the right decision about whether the U.S. should go to war with Iran,” according to a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll.

Only 42 percent of respondents say they have faith in Bush to judge whether another Middle East war--this one aimed at stopping Iran from producing nuclear weaponry--is necessary or prudent. “Forty percent said the Iraq experience had made them less supportive of military action against Iran, while 38 percent said it had no impact,” Bloomberg reports.

Turning to Iraq, Bloomberg says 56 percent of Americans now believe that that country is already engaged in a civil war, “and just 37 percent said they believe Bush when he says a lot of progress is being made there, down from 45 percent who said they believed him in January.”

READ MORE: “Here Is the Democratic Message on Iran,” by John Aravosis (AMERICAblog); “Analysts Say a Nuclear Iran Is Years Away,” by William J. Broad, Nazila Fathi, and Joel Brinkley (The New York Times); “The Nuclear Countdown,” by Tim Grieve (Salon); “On Cheney, Rumsfeld Order, U.S. Outsourcing Special Ops, Intelligence to Iraq Terror Group,” by Larisa Alexandrovna (Raw Story); “The Revolt Against Rumsfeld,” by Fred Kaplan (Slate); “Anti-Rumsfeld Chorus Grows,” by Peter Spiegel and Paul Richter (Los Angeles Times); “Kerry 49%, Bush 39%,” by Steve Benen (The Carpetbagger Report).