Directions: Read the article carefully.

Take your own notes about the

declarations and the people who say them. After reading it, fill the table
below, connect the declarations with the persons and answer the
questions.

Bush Faces GOP Ire Over Rumsfeld Timing

By JOHN HEILPRIN, AP
WASHINGTON (Nov. 12) - The White House is trying to soothe Republicans
who say the party might have fared better on Election Day if President Bush
had not waited until after the vote to oust Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld.
"You could argue that either way, of what political effect an earlier decision on
Secretary Rumsfeld would have had. But it doesn't matter," White House chief
of staff Josh Bolten said Sunday.
"The president correctly decided that this decision does not belong in the
political realm. And a decision as important as your secretary of defense should
not be made based on some partisan political advantage. It would send a
terrible signal to our troops, to our allies, even to our enemies," Bolten said.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has suggested that if Bush replaced
Rumsfeld two weeks before the election, voters would not have been as angry
about the unpopular Iraq war. Republicans would have gained the boost they
needed, according to Gingrich, to retain their majority in the Senate and hold
onto 10 to 15 more House seats.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the outgoing chairman of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, agreed with that assessment.
Bush should have removed Rumsfeld "as soon as he had made up his mind.
And that's a hard thing to calculate. But it's highly doubtful that he made up his
mind between the time the election returns came in on Tuesday and
Wednesday when Rumsfeld was out."
"And if Rumsfeld had been out, you bet it would have made a difference,"
Specter said. "I'd still be chairman of the Judiciary Committee."
The same thought occurred to veteran Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Fla., who was on the
verge of becoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. After
the election, Shaw said that if Rumsfeld had stepped down before last Tuesday,
Shaw and other Republicans might have won.
"It could have made a difference in who is running the Congress," said Shaw.
Bush said in an Oval Office interview with The Associated Press and other
reporters on Nov. 1 that he expected Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney
to stay in his administration until the end. A day after Democrats triumphed,

Bush acknowledged he misled the reporters because he "didn't want to inject a

major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign."
Bolten explained that when Bush spoke to the reporters, the president had
begun seeking a replacement for Rumsfeld - but had yet to decide on a
successor.
"The president was not going to replace Secretary Rumsfeld unless he was
confident that he had a very strong replacement available to him to put in
place," Bolten said.
More important, Bolten said, was that Bush's misdirection to the press was
justified by military need.
"If he had said something other than what he said, if he had been equivocal
about his support for Secretary Rumsfeld, that would have started an outbreak
of then warranted speculation about Secretary Rumsfeld's tenure," Bolten said.
"It would have undermined Secretary Rumsfeld's ability to lead the military in a
time of war."
White House counselor Dan Bartlett said he did not buy the idea that the timing
of the resignation would have made a difference with voters - but allowed that
the president was concerned with appearances.
"Think about the signal it would have sent two weeks before the election if
President Bush, desperate to change political polls, would have jettisoned his
secretary of defense. It would have looked desperate," Bartlett said.
"It would have looked like it was made based on political motivations, not on the
security interests of our country," he said. "And I think that would have
weakened the president and Republican support going down the stretch of this
campaign."
Rumsfeld's departure was a turning point in the administration's Iraq policy.
Bolten and Bartlett, making the rounds of Sunday talk shows, said Bush will
now welcome new ideas about the war, even from Democrats he once called
soft on terrorism.
Some Democrats raised concerns about Bush's choice of former CIA Director
Robert Gates to succeed Rumsfeld. The questions revolve around what Gates
knew during the Iran-Contra affair, which involved two Reagan White House
covert operations: selling arms to Iran to free U.S. hostages in Lebanon and
supplying arms to the Contra guerrillas fighting the leftist government of
Nicaragua.
"I haven't decided what I'm going to do with Mr. Gates," said Sen. Carl Levin, DMich., the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Bolten and Levin spoke on ABC's "This Week." Specter appeared on CNN's
"Late Edition." Bartlett and Dean were on "Fox News Sunday."

11/12/06 15:42 EST

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP
news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed
without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks
have been inserted by AOL.
COMPREHENSION EXERCISES
In the table, write a D or an R whether the person is Democrat or
Republican. Then, fill out the space with the corresponding charge of the
person, from the list of the last line. Keep in mind the number assigned to
each person for the next exercise

George Bush

Democrat /
Republican
R

Donald Rumsfeld

Josh Bolten

Newt Gingrich

Arlen Specter

Clay Shaw

Dick Cheney

Dan Bartlett

Robert Gates

Charge
President of the U.S.A.
Former / outgoing Secretary of Defense

10 Carl Levin
- New / incoming Secretary of Defense
- Vice President of the U.S.A.
- Current White House speaker
- Former White House speaker
- Outgoing Chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Committee
- Incoming Chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Committee
- White House counselor
- Representative, almost Chairman of
the House Ways and Means Committee

Who said what idea? Write the number of one of the persons from the list
above in the corresponding empty box of the sentences below, which
express the same meaning of the original statements in the article, but
using different words.
The President made his decision based on image, but a different decision
wouldnt have produced other election results.

The President had already decided to substitute the Secretary of Defense,

but still not chosen who would be the new Secretary.
The President expected Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld to work with
him all the 4 years of the term.
Actions about the new Secretary of Defense are still to be decided.
The authorities in the Congress would have been different.
The President didnt want to give a dangerous interpretation to the rest of
the world about military leadership.
It doesnt seem probable that the President has made such a decision only
1 day after the results of the election were published.
If Rumsfeld had left fifteen days previous to the election, the Republicans
would have kept their majority.