{"id":6026,"date":"2005-12-08T10:01:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-08T15:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6026"},"modified":"2005-12-08T10:01:00","modified_gmt":"2005-12-08T15:01:00","slug":"rummy-out-joementum-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/rummy-out-joementum-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Rummy out, Joementum in?"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to the New York Daily News’ Thomas DeFrank, there might be a very interesting shake-up<\/a> at the Pentagon within the next month or so.<\/p>\n

White House officials are telling associates they expect Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to quit early next year, once a new government is formed in Iraq, sources said yesterday.<\/p>\n

Rumsfeld’s deputy, Gordon England, is the inside contender to replace him, but there’s also speculation that Sen. Joe Lieberman — a Democrat who ran against Bush-Cheney in the 2000 election — might become top guy at the Pentagon. […]<\/p>\n

The Daily News has learned that the White House considered Lieberman for the UN ambassador’s job last year before giving the post to John Bolton, a Bush adviser said.<\/p>\n

“He thought about it for a week or so and finally said no,” the adviser recalled.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s hard to know where to start with these rumors, but in the end, talk about Lieberman replacing Rumsfeld continues to shift from baseless speculation to genuine possibility.<\/p>\n

And what’s behind the delay in forcing Rumsfeld out the door?<\/p>\n

A source close to the White House said Rumsfeld wanted out a year ago, after Bush’s reelection, but neither he nor President Bush wanted his departure to appear to have been forced. <\/p>\n

“They didn’t want to give the critics the satisfaction that their piling on was what got rid of him,” a Bush adviser said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, the president is apparently willing to keep an incompetent Secretary of Defense around, during a war, just to spite his critics. It seems hard to believe that Bush would allow Rumsfeld to run the Pentagon for more than a year just to save face … oh wait, that’s not hard to believe at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to the New York Daily News’ Thomas DeFrank, there might be a very interesting shake-up at the Pentagon within the next month or so. White House officials are telling associates they expect Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to quit early next year, once a new government is formed in Iraq, sources said yesterday. Rumsfeld’s deputy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}