Is this crisis consuming the White House?

[whosinpower]

I read that this morning somewhere - an editorial.

What are your thoughts DUers? Is this prisoner abuse scandal "consuming" the White House?

Last night on CNN, Aaron Brown was talking to a fellow who specializes in "damage control". He talked about Bush speech to the Arab world and basically said that the Arabs already hated the US, and so it really does not matter....that mostly the speech was intended for the ears of America.

Senator Biden was on later and said that this scandal was the worst thing that has happened to the reputation of the US in a long long time and that something was needed to be done to prove to the world that the US would not condone its own people doing these sorts of things...something very very big - like demolishing Abu Ghraib prison itself.

What do you think Duers? Is this consuming the White House? Is this consuming America?

[Skittles]

1. the major damage for Bush is how disgusted America is

there is no way a decent human being can view those photos without feeling sick.

[City Lights]

12. Do you think the average American blames bush

for the torture?

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

18. I think the truly "average" American..."middle America"...believes...

...the "justice will be served" bullshit.

[City Lights]

21. I do too.

I don't believe they hold bush responsible for what happened. He'll be given credit for taking command of the horrible situation. Unless it is proved beyond any doubt that bush knew what was happening and did nothing until the pictures went public, he'll be given credit for his strong leadership.

A strong leader is pro-active. shrub is reactive.

[Skittles]

25. true

but deep down they know it reflects badly on the US. Dear GOD, these are the same people who trashed the country over a BJ.

[Skittles]

26. I did qualify it by the adjective DECENT

this would exclude most Bush supporters

[lancdem]

2. This front-page article on yahoo says criticism

of Rumsfeld is "escalating."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&e=1&u=/ap/20040506/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/rumsfeld_under_fire

[supernova]

3. I heard calls for Rumsfeld to resign

this morning. The "dressing down" he got yesterday was not enough to quell the groundswell on this issue.

I heard this on both NPR and BBC. We'll see if it happens. This is the first time I've heard someone else besides us lefties say someone needs to resign from this admin.

To answer your question: Yes it is consuming the WH. Good, that means they don't have time to pawn things off on Kerry or Clinton.

[lancdem]

5. And since there's even more evidence that will come out

this is NOT going away.

[Supormom]

22. Agreed

If they are consumed with damage control in Iraq they do not have time to inflict damage on Kerry or other democrats.
The criminal actions that took place at Abu Ghraib are despicable and should be addressed. It's too bad that it took something this grotesque to draw the media's attention away from the Kerry medals vs. ribbons "scandal".

[Blue_Roses]

4. No doubt

it is having a huge impact inside the doors of the WH. Especially, right here at election time. Not one of Bush's best days.

[quinnox]

6. Yup, deep trouble for Bush

He based his re-election on the Iraq success, now it is falling apart at the seams. Makes the whole administration look bad, and this is probably the nail in the coffin for his presidency.

[amber dog democrat]

10. I believe you are right.

Regarding this war; how can we win it?
Is there an achievable victory now?
Why were we there in the first place?

When are we going to give up and go home?

I think even Bush supporters will want to distance themselves from this nightmare.
Things are not working out the way the Bush Admin had hoped , are they?

[quinnox]

13. It's a big mess

Iraq is turning out to be a huge failure.

[amber dog democrat]

17. How about a Faith Based Invasion?

Maybe a privitized crusade will fix it - turn the war to our favor.

And If we converted them to Christianity, they would not hate us so much.

[Karenina]

24. "Regarding this war; how can we win it? "

First point: This is NOT a "war." Only Congress has the power to declare war. THE ATTACK ON IRAQ WAS AN !!!INVASION!!! by a most powerful military, that was conducted AGAINST the wishes and advice of Iraq's neighbors AND the world community.

WIN??? WIN WHAT??? The ability to decimate and poison a land, her wonderful people, destroy her history and heritage, kill off her children, imprison and torture her citizens and steal her resources in an action based on LIES, LIES, LIES??? Gotta LOVE those Amis.

VICTORY???? IMHO, that would be packing up your kids and sending them HOME TO THEIR FAMILIES. Believe me, your plates will be FULL dealing with the effects of the abuse *corp has heaped upon them. YESTERDAY would work for me.

The only thing to "give up" is the racist imperialistic idea that *America has the "white makes right" to sell off to the lowest *crony bidder another country's assets.

[amber dog democrat]

7. I think a bit more needs to happen

before the Chimp's adminsitration unravels completely, but its well on the way.
They can't do anything right and the errors are compounding.
Honor, decency and honesty are just not in the equation.

The latest revealations steming from the policies of the War Crimes President may be the visible part of the iceberg. I am waiting to see if more images come forward.

The thing that worries me is the thought that enough Americans will decide, " so what, we still want the oil and prefer they fear us - if this makes the US more safe."
This is the kind of premise that would have been popular during the Roman Empire.

[scrotim]

8. so Biden thinks naked prisoners is worse than 800 dead soldiers

and thousands of dead Iraqi's and a massive invasion and war justified by deception, and all the other bush atrocities perpetrated in the name of 9/11?

Well, whatever it takes to get W out of the white house, I suppose.

[THUNDER HANDS]

9. no it's not

the election is consuming the white house. It's always been what this white house has been concerned with.

The torture scandal is a blip on their radar. They're probably just calculating how many days it'll take to get their message back on track.

[chimpymustgo]

14. All the King's horses and all the King's men...

I think you are right in a sense, Magic Rat, but this debacle is forcing them to expend energy on something OTHER than the election.

And it's not going away.

All the King's horse and all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty back together again.

[City Lights]

15. I agree with you, Magic Rat.

The only thing bushco cares about is four more years of power over the universe. The military knew months ago what was happening over there. If what bush claims is true - that he didn't know - then I want to know why the hell he didn't know. If he's really that far out of the loop, then I'm left wondering why we even have a prezidunce.

I believe bush and rove are more upset with the fact that the public found out than they are that it happened.

[revcarol]

11. If we see Republican donations go down, or if we see

Republicans separating themselves from Bush, THEN, and only then, we will know.

Thought Enron, CA energy revelations, 'O Neil, no WMDs and lies to take us to war, Condi's lies, the economy and deliberate encouragement of shifting jobs overseas and outsourcing would bring down Bush.Totally naive, I guess.

May not be consuming the WH, but it will help.

[City Lights]

16. Agreed, revcarol.

If chimpy goes down, it will be at the hands of the republicans.

[TahitiNut]

19. Nawww. They don't give a shit. FOLLOW THE MONEY.

This has the (malignant) virtue of being a convenient distraction while their corporatist cronies continue to pillage the Treasury for years to come, and rape the "lower 90%." Virtually every dollar spent in the ME is finding its way into the pocket of a corporatist crony.

[HamdenRice]

20. Contrary view: They are not breaking a sweat

I don't think that this or any other scandal is consuming the WH. I don't think that Bush -- or even his puppet masters, Cheney and Rumsfeld -- are introspective enough to be "consumed" by any crisis.

This is just a pragmatic problem for them to be managed -- eg by the fake disclosure that Bush is somehow mad at Rumsfeld. This is opinion management, not news; real news about an appropriate Bush response to Rumsfeld's performance would be, to paraphrase the Donald, "You're fired!"

Remember these guys (eg Wolfowitz) don't even care enough to read the newspapers to find out how many American soldiers have been killed.

Only Powell seems agonized -- and as the other thread today shows, this is basically self-serving, self-pittying agony on Powell's part.

On a purely pragmatic level, they may be worrying a bit about re-election, but -- and here I disagree with most of the media and most of the posters here -- I don't think the admin is worrying much about the election. Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that these guys are so sure of their own correctness that they won't let a "normal" election occur. Rove knows, by computer programs, down to the county level how he can squeak out a victory. A terrorist bomb threat in some obscure democratic county in Ohio, a quiet purging of voter rolls in semi-suburban Florida, and Bush can pull out another popular losing, electoral winning coup

[Mandate My Ass]

23. Already downgraded from torture scandal

to an abuse issue.

The media is complicit by ceasing to use the word torture -- which is what this is -- and erroneously labelling it prisoner abuse.

The rest of the world is rightly disgusted and appalled by these actions and their cover up, but damage control is in high gear here.

Nobody has resigned or been fired, and I doubt anyone will. It's like the Aug 6th PDB, which seems to have disappeared off the radar altogether and how damning was that?