WP: Americans Do Not Think Rumsfeld Should Resign (Poll Results)

Public Divided Over Administration's Handling of Investigation
A large majority of Americans believe that embattled Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld should not resign over the Iraq prison scandal, but the public remains sharply divided over whether the administration moved quickly enough to investigate reports of abuse before they became public, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Seven in 10 Americans said Rumsfeld should not be forced to quit, a view held by majorities of Republicans, Democrats and self-described political independents. The survey comes a day after President Bush gave Rumsfeld a vote of confidence, and as Rumsfeld faced stiff questioning by members of Congress enraged that they were kept in the dark about abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.
As new details continue to emerge, the survey found that public views on the way Bush is handling the scandal are divided and not yet fully formed. Fewer than half -- 48 percent -- said they approve of the way the president is dealing with the issue while 35 percent disapprove. But 17 percent are undecided, a clear indication that many Americans are waiting for more information before coming to judgment.
The poll found even greater divisions over the way the administration handled reports of abuse before the scandal broke in the media last week. Four in 10 faulted the administration for failing to move quickly enough to investigate the reports while an identical proportion disagreed.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8010-2004May7.html

should be in a prison cell in the Hague as well as resign. :grr:

I don't want shrub to fire him. I want him to remain where he is, a large stone around shrub's neck dragging him down. Letting these people off with a slap on the wrist is too easy. Let them reap what they have sown. We will be rid of them in due course and then we should try all their asses for treason.

Woof

Herr Rumsfeld needs to stay on until he finds himself in the dock at the new Nuremburg trials.
He may be a bigger liability where he is.

I am amazed that he is trying to impose yet more censorship on this current atrocity.
I picture him on a leash naked, being dragged around by female Iraqis.
Good doggie,

...we must never forget his failed leadership. Whether you are for or against this war (I was against) this man failed to provide sufficient troop strength, failed to provide the men and women in Iraq and in Afghanistan with adequate protection, supplies, resources and training. He failed and failed miserably and now America must pick up his tab.

I hope he hangs on and on and on just like a millstone around chimp's neck all through the campaign. If either chimp or rummy had any sense rummy would be gone, STUPID STUPID STUPID. :silly:

Why give Bush the cover of blaming Rumsfeld and acting like something is handled just because Rumsfeld is gone?

It would appear as 1 big failure for Bush to have one of his cabinet outed in disgrace. They would appear weakened if not totally nullified toward congress and the senate.

AND NO WAY I mean No way would this not follow them into the up coming elections. If we allow Rummy to stay they will spin it into "The American People approve of the Administration"

"ALLEZ CUISINE!!!"



"Skui-San!"

"Yes, Ota?"

"The Iron Chef says he will cook these poll numbers until the stupid Murkan sheeple think Koizumi will be their next President!"


Trial.

Rope.

,...he has committed against his own people and the people of other nations!!!

I want his ass in prison for the rest of his natural life!!!

:D

It is unfortunate but mayn people in U.S. do not realize that the civilian leaders of the military bear responsibility for what the military does - They set the tone and establish the conditions under which the military is supposed to operate. It is similar to what the NCAA calls "institutional control" for college sports. When there is a lack of institutional control, the institution (University) is punished. Often that means the Athletic Director resigns. Rumsfield is the personification of civilian control of the military. He should resign. In some parlimentary systems, such as Japan, Bush would have to resign as well. Unfortunately in our system, resignation resulting from failure is not an established tradition. So Rummy should be fired and Bush should not be reelected.

Chimpy has been a leader in this respect, at least. He has taught many Americans by example that the buck doesn't ever stop, especially not at the top. Nobody takes responsibility in this administration. Ever.

I think most Americans are disgusted with what's happening, but they may be unclear on who is to blame. A lot of Americans probably don't know who Rumsfeld is, for example. And God forbid our God-annointed president knew anything about it! It must just be an unfortunate series of events. Six morans who lost the war. You know. Little guys.

Prime Minister Koizumi's Number 2 man, Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuda, was involved in a scandal that has forced him to resign, but don't count on Koizumi resigning any time soon. Japanese managers may take responsibility for the actions of their subordinates, but Japanese politicians don't.

Their on-line poll indicates 72% thinks Rummy should either resign or get fired.

The media is up in arms about the one young woman -- photos, interviews with her townspeople in W VA, the whole works.

They're trying to put a female, working class face on this abomination.

This is not about young soldier England, any more than the Iraq invasion was about Jessica Lynch.

This is about the entire chain of command. The Red Cross has as much as said that, which is surprising because they usually are reticent to burn bridges.

"Should Rummy's ass be canned?"

Of course they are going to publish results that are favorable to the chimp in charge.

I'm just saying...

Yesterday on sfgate.com they had a survey and here are the results when I screen captured it:

Should bu$h fire rummy the dummy over Iraqi abuse scandal?

Yes, failed to warn stupid pre$, set wrong tone
- 3%

No, it's the Army's mess
- 7%

Voters should fire the whole misadministration
- 90%

Total vote: 3040

Though not scientific, I believe this better represents the views of many Americans.

Someone as dishonest, as corrupt, and as evil as Rumsfeld is who is working for someone as dishonest, as corrupt, and as evil as Bush is will not be able to suppress those traits. Between now and the election, more and more voters will be disgusted or fed up with something else Rummy does or says. For different people, different things will be the final straw and they will add up.

Keeping Rummy will help Bush only with the Night of the Broken Glass republicans and Bush will always have their vote.

Takes a long time for people to get through the denial. After reading a lot of articles, one theme keeps coming up when the press interviews Americans: "I cannot believe so-and-so/we/America would do such a thing."

Appears many people have only seen the pics and don't understand that they were the *least offensive* of the lot in conjunction with murders and rape.

More will follow per Hersh. It will take some time to cut through the daily clutter and sink in how bad this is.

It never ceases to amaze me about the hypocrisy of the GOP, especially during the Clinton presidency. Clinton's first defense secretary Les Aspin got rode out of Washington on a rail solely over one incident of one of of copters going down and our dead soldiers being drug through the streets. All of the GOP were outraged and demanded that we immediately pull our troops out of Somalia and demanded to know why we were even there. Seems to me that I remember that more than one of our copters have gone down in Iraq, we've had soldiers and US civilians drug through the streets and our sole reason for continuing to keep our troops in Iraq right now is little different than why were over in Somalia interestingly enough. So far, not only was the handling of post-war Iraq botched big time, but we haven't found any WMD, 700+ soldiers have died in the post-war conflict, and now we find out that some of our troops have been engaging in torture not unlike that which existed under Saddam's brutal regime(who's going to liberate the Iraqis from us?). If Clinton were in office, the GOP would not only be clamoring for the head of his defense secretary, they'd be drafting articles of impeachment for him so fast that it would make our collective heads spin, not to mention the fact that the GOP DID actually try to impeach Clinton for nothing more than lying about extramarital sex with a CONSENTING legal age White House intern. I'm pretty sure that they would be demanding an immediate withdrawal and pull-out of our troops. There wouldn't be a bunch of calls for "staying the course" for them. They'd probably have already demanded that Clinton have fired his national security advisor for preventing 9-11 (assuming that it would have happened anyway). I'm pretty sure that they would never have allowed a Democrat to hold detainees indefinitely out of reach and they would be outraged if Clinton ordered US citizens held as "enemy combatants." There would be GOP members on the floor everyday screaming about it. And yet, despite everything that has happened since we invaded Iraq, I haven't heard a SINGLE GOP member of Congress or Party Leader call for neither Bush nor Rice, nor Rumsfield's resignation. As a matter of fact, one GOP Senator (Lindsey Grahm I believe) seemed to be outraged that Charles Rangel is drafting (or at least talking about drafting) articles of impeachment against Rumsfield. Not a SINGLE member of the Bush Administration has been held accountable for ANYTHING. Not Bush, not Condi, not Rumsfield, not ANYBODY! Hell, Rod Paige, who compared teacher's unions to terrorists did not get into ANY trouble with Bush or the GOP! Instead, members of the GOP are doing what? A whole bunch of them got on the floor and denounced Kerry's war record because he came back from the war and told everybody that he thought, like almost everybody currently agrees, that the Vietnam war was a bad idea! Gasp! Next time we get a Democratic President in office (hopefully November!), we will have to make sure that the GOP keeps their big mouths shut whenever any allegations of wrongdoing surface against the Democratic administration and resist and refuse calls for congressional investigations, special counsels, and resignations and/or firings of cabinet officials unless we all agree that they should go. Clinton or Gore or any other Democrat could never hope to get away with the kind of things that Bush and his administration have managed to do since they have been in office. The GOP's hypocrisy would be laughable if it wasn't so serious.