This is my first diary since June. It has no links, just some thoughts worth recording.
I’m short on sleep, having stayed up real late for the election then had to get up extremely early to appear in a distant federal court. Five hours of driving in the rain today, mainly on unfamiliar roads while short on sleep. BUT I’M SURE HAPPY TODAY!!
Bush’s press conference today was a wonder. I have a theory about what happened.
Last week, Bush swore that he’d stick with Rumsfeld and Cheney for the next two years. (Blogs commented that it was a strange remark, since Bush has no power to dismiss Cheney.)
Bush and Cheney were also vocal during the campaign in sneering at the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group. To W, that represents the Old Farts (H.W.: “wouldn’t be prudent”). Even the presence of the Great Fixer Baker is nothing to W, who thinks he is annointed.
So what happens today? The Republicans get slaughtered in the elections. (OH HAPPY DAY!!!)
And within hours Bush fires Rumsfeld; makes a big point about how he’s meeting with the Baker-Hamilton group early next week; and appoints Bob Gates (a member of the Baker-Hamilton group, and H.W.’s man) as new SecDef.
Here’s what really happened behind the scenes.
Bush has been dumping repeatedly on his father, and on the conservatives, and on everybody else. The frustration has risen to a fever pitch in all directions. Recently many high-level conservatives such as Richard Viguerie, Pat Buchanan, and many others have called for the downfall of the Bush administration.
So this is what I think: Very early this morning there was an INTERVENTION (remember, a few days ago, Sullivan famously said on TV that this “isn’t an election, it’s an intevention”). (It has been notoriously reported that Bush stayed up EXTREMELY LATE last night watching the elections…ALL the way to 11 p.m.!!…so it must have been very early in the morning.)
In the intervention, the Powers That Be (not Bush 1 but the BIG MONEY behind Bush 1), probably in the guise of a call from Pops plus Baker, just simply laid the law down to junior.
The significance of this is not only that Rumsfeld got fired. It’s also that the POWERS have now also fired Cheney. I predict Cheney will be gone, one way or the other, within six months or less.
You heard it here first!
