Bush accepts Rummy's resignation in 2004

It is widely believed Rumsfeld offered Bush his resignation following the Abu Garib prison scandal in the summer of 2004.

Suppose Bush had accepted his resignation, what effect would this have on:

1. Bush's chances for re-election

2, Iraq war overall.....
 
Well- depends who the replacement is. If he appoints Dick Cheney, then more of the same, and Bush still gets re-elected :cool: if Kerry is the Dem nominee.
 
As someone previously enlightened me, you can legally hold the two positions simultaneously, but it was never tried before. Vice President is different from Deputy President. That post was held by two people only- James Byrnes for FDR in WWII and RFK in his brother's administration.
 
If Bush appointed Gates in 2004 it most likely would have helped. And maybe staved off the 2006 GOP disaster. McCain might even have won in 2008.

Of course, there would still be the problems of overspending (which in retrospect looks puny compared with "Big Daddy" Obama printing money at Weimar levels) and administrative incompetence in some other agencies, such as FEMA ("Helluva job, Brownie!")

And who can forget good ol' Mark Foley?????
 
Yeah, Abu Ghraib and the deficit looked bad, but (from what I know) it was Katrina that really did the administration in. It really discredited a lot of his other policies: "What are we fighting a war for when we can't even take care of ourselves?" and so on. That was the point when people began questioning the wars, whereas before Katrina doing so was still considered unpatriotic. A different defence secretary would not necessarily have changed that.

What were the crucial decisions made by Defence between 2004 and 2006? It's hard to sort that out in my head... Gates became SoD at the end of 2006, and the troop surge began almost immediately afterward. And that's when things started going right! - which means they were planned under Rummy.

So all in all, I'm not so sure that much would have changed, although that seems wrong to me.
 
If Bush appointed Gates in 2004 it most likely would have helped. And maybe staved off the 2006 GOP disaster. McCain might even have won in 2008.

Of course, there would still be the problems of overspending (which in retrospect looks puny compared with "Big Daddy" Obama printing money at Weimar levels) and administrative incompetence in some other agencies, such as FEMA ("Helluva job, Brownie!")

And who can forget good ol' Mark Foley?????

It may arguably starve off the GOP disaster in 06 in that it narrowly retains control of the Seante but it doesn't butterfly Katrina and the Wall Street mortgage meltdown of 08, so McCain will still lose though by a more narrow magin.
 
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