posted
Did anyone see Tenet's speach? He says it is because he wants to spend more time with his family.
Posts: 1901 | Registered: May 2004
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posted
Didn't see Tenent's speech, but I heard Bush's comments on the radio, with birds chirping in the background, which struck me as really weird.
The NPR commentator I heard asked the question, "Did he really resign or was he forced out?" No one really seems to know, yet.
Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
Give us 6 months, and then he'll write his book and tell his side of the whole Iraq/Terrorist thing. Bush will deny it all and blame it on yet another disgruntled ex-employee, which begs the question, who has been steeling all of there gruntle.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
So you're predicting a Bush re-election, Dan? I guess six months he would still technically be in office either way.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
How many top level officials are going to resign for "personal reasons" from the Bush admin. before someone realizes this administration has some crummy staffers overall?
Posts: 369 | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
Actually, Tenet served under the previous administration as well. Though I agree that there are probably more than "personal" reasons for his resignation, his tour has been one of the longer ones for recent DCIs.
Posts: 471 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
That doesn't matter, what matters is that under the Bush admin. circumstances arose that forced him to resign.
Posts: 369 | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
You're seriously not going to use staffers that resign for personal reasons as a metric for the Bush administration, are you? I'd bet his numbers are no worse than most presidents and better than many.
posted
Look at what these ones have resigned *for*. -First we have Harvey Pitt, no scandal there is there? -Paul O'Neil was fired/quit simply because the Bush admin. doesn't want an intelligent economist trying to mess up their excessive tax cuts for rich friends while deficit spending up the wazoo. -Tenet, he is undoubtedly is the fall-guy for the admin.'s incompetancy in handing Iraq, 9-11 and Afghanistan, especially since this is an election year and the polls show Bush taking massive heat for about 5 different foreign policy issues that he is able to lay blame on Tenet for.
I am probably leaving out many that I either forgot or the public doesn't hear about Ie: related to staff who's heads rolled for the press in relation to justice dept. scandal over Ashcroft's "statements" to the NRA, the scandal over the outing of the CIA agent, the first few officials who attempted to blow the whistle on Cheney and the energy buddies but failed, etc, etc.
posted
Can we use staffers that resign, period? Because, y'know, these "personal reasons" aren't fooling anybody.
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posted
Only if you want to compare it to previous administrations to see if the rate is different. Otherwise, the metric is meaningless.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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In all honesty, I don't know why Bush kept Tenet in the first place. It wasn't necessary, but he did. Usually when administrations of different parties change, ALL staffers of the former administration are changed. But Tenet was kept. I wonder why?
Posts: 471 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Why not? He did his job reasonably well, and took the fall for Bush when he claimed well, sure, Bush must've started the Iraq War based on bad intelligence from Tenet -- no other reason, surely.
He served his purpose.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Dunno about the doing his job reasonably well part, though, that's just the thing. The Cole incident happened under Tenet's tenure. So, I think, did the bombing of the Chinese embassy. Is that really "reasonably well?"
Posts: 471 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
There's not much need to compare this to other administrations, an administration shouldn't need to be able to be compared to flawed, previous ones in order to look acceptable, it should be able to do that on its own merits.
Posts: 369 | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
But you're speculating that people resigning for personal reasons somehow makes this administration bad. So a comparison with previous administrations will help tell us whether this is normal for high-stress political positions in DC or if this is an aberration signaling a problem.
posted
You know what, maybe they "sucked" too? Maybe the point of successive governance is to try to learn and do better than all the governments prior to them? The goal is to progress. Looking back at previous governments and trying to determine what is "normal" for periods of government malfunction is just trying to make excuses and cover up the shortfalls of the current government, and wouldn't provide any useful diagnostic anyway since each government besides the basic structure is so utterly unique due to internal factions, political climates, etc., that the comparisson becomes completely useless. Anyone who continues to shift the actual focus away from what is currently wrong with the present government is someone who is contributing to the problem.
Also, the whole point of this is that many/most of these people are not resigning for personal reasons, if you really believe that the primary reason Tenet is resigning with the timing and recent polls, etc., is because of personal reasons, then I have a bridge to sell you.
quote:How many top level officials are going to resign for "personal reasons" from the Bush admin. before someone realizes this administration has some crummy staffers overall?
If top level officials resigning for personal reasons is caused by crummy staffers, and if other administrations had the same rate of resignations, then either all administrations have crummy staffers or your premise that resignations imply crummy staffers is incorrect.
posted
As far as I know, the chiefs of the CIA and the FBI remain in office during a change of Administration or Congress. Those two Administrative agencies are somewhat like the USmilitary and the federal judiciary: ideally totally non-political.
Even though they ceremonially tender their resignations upon change of Administration just like every other appointee of the previous Administration, the Change of Administration resignation offers by these two executives are refused, with the positions offered back to those holding the posts. The continuity of the chief executives of these two agencies through changes of Administration and new CongressionalSessions is used as a public demonstration of the ideal that these particular appointed executives are not chosen for the purpose of advancing a political agenda, and that the agencies which they head are not under the direct control of the whims of current politics or politicians.
quote:If top level officials resigning for personal reasons is caused by crummy staffers, and if other administrations had the same rate of resignations, then either all administrations have crummy staffers or your premise that resignations imply crummy staffers is incorrect.
Like I said, maybe all previous administration sucked, but not all previous administrations are the same and can be judged with similar criteria, your stretch for evluative comparisson is a little much in this regard, and doesn't hold up against the uniqueness aspect. Resignations ALWAYS imply at least some inept staffers if at least for the reason they couldn't anticipate the way they would feel about their job into it later, however I think that the extent and details of the resignations from this admin. prove it to be crummier than most.
quote:You've provided no evidence either way.
This is just another facet of the problem, the Bush admin. is so concerned with using its vaunted executive privilege that no evidence can be known for certain and nearly every scandal that includes someone resigning is either brushed off or "internally investigated." Because the Bush admin. makes it impossible to even verify its own internal workings, one should assume the worst when one is not allowed by the party under scrutiny to have more complete information.
Aspectre, don't you think a CIA or FBI chief would resign if told to by the President? I'm not saying Tenet was inept, I'm merely saying people in the Bush admin. were and they needed a fall guy for the coming election issues.
posted
Presidential appointees serve at the discretion of the President. The operative word being serve. If the President feels that a PresidentialAppointee can best serve the Presidency by resigning, it is that appointee's honorbound duty to resign. Except under the most extreme*circumstance, resignations are publicly announced by the appointee with no cause being given beyond "For personal reasons," along with praise for the President's accomplishments ...under normal circumstances.
* Extreme circumstance meaning when honor and concience dictates that Duty to the Nation overides Duty to the President.
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