All the major papers lead today with huge reports about Bush admonishing Rumsfeld over his mishandling of the Abu Ghraib scandal.
President Bush privately admonished Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday, a senior White House official said, as other U.S. officials blamed the Pentagon for failing to act on repeated recommendations to improve conditions for thousands of Iraqi detainees and release those not charged with crimes.
Bush is “not satisfied” and “not happy” with the way Rumsfeld informed him about the investigation into abuses by U.S. soldiers at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison or the quantity of information Rumsfeld provided, the senior White House official said.
This was obviously a carefully-organized leak from the White House. The stories characterize the Bush smackdown as “private,” but that’s a little silly — how private could it have been if Bush aides started calling every reporter in town as soon as the meeting ended? Indeed, as the NYT report noted, accounts of the “private” criticism was leaked “under authorization from Mr. Bush.”
The implication of these orchestrated stories seems to be that Bush is a victim here. He relied on Rumsfeld, Myers, et al, but they let him down. Bush didn’t know about the abuse until he, like the rest of us, saw it on the news, so none of us should hold him in any way responsible for the scandal or its consequences.
As a political manipulation strategy, this tack may appear to make some sense, but just beyond the surface, Bush’s handling of this is wholly inadequate.
First, Bush is making Rumsfeld an unpunished scapegoat. Yesterday’s “private” meeting seems more like a giant buck-passing exercise than a sincere expression of frustration on the president’s part. I suspect the meeting was less about criticism and more about Bush putting his arm around Rumsfeld and saying, “I don’t want too much heat for this, Don, so I’m hanging you out to dry. I need you to take one for the team and wait for this to blow over.”
Second, the Bush-as-victim story doesn’t make any sense. Bush didn’t learn about Abu Ghraib on 60 Minutes, he was briefed on the investigations in January, or perhaps even December.
And finally, yesterday’s alleged chiding is one of those political moves that gives the appearance of action without actually doing anything. This scandal is snowballing, the world is outraged, al Queda is probably using this in its latest recruiting videos, and people want to see what kind of leadership Bush is exercising. So what kind of steps is Bush taking? Well, he’s “privately admonishing” his Defense secretary.
But as a substantive matter, this is utterly meaningless. Bush wants us to know that Rumsfeld had a difficult trip to the principal’s office yesterday, but so what? When asked if he supported Rumsfeld, Bush told Al Hurra, “Of course I’ve got confidence in the secretary of defense.” In fact, the two will be buddy-buddy this afternoon when Bush swings by the Pentagon for a visit.
White House officials said that the visit had been planned before the abuse scandal erupted, but they acknowledged that its timing was opportune for Mr. Bush to make a public show of support for Mr. Rumsfeld after the messy events of Wednesday.
In other words, Bush got a little peeved and now everything’s business as usual. It reminds me of a similar flap last week, when Bush not-so-subtly leaked word that he was mad at Ashcroft for declassifying documents about one of the 9/11 Commission members.
Again, the public rebuke makes it seem like Bush is doing something, but the result is the same. Ashcroft misused his office and the documents were leaked. Bush was “displeased,” but he got the better end of the deal because the documents were still released.
The same thing with Rumsfeld. Bush acts like he’s taking action (giving Rumsfeld a tongue lashing) but he’s really just pointing his finger at the guy he wants to see criticized instead of himself. Nothing has changed and nothing’s been accomplished.
Just the way Bush likes it.