Pertaining to the Purge of the "Gonzales Eight":
Former Senator John Edwards barks the loudest in this statement:
Today's news is only the latest and most disturbing sign of the politicization of justice under President Bush. From the abuse of investigative authority under the Patriot Act to the unconstitutional imprisonment of the Guantanamo Bay detainees and illegal torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Bagram Air Force Base, this president has consistently shown contempt for the rule of law.The Arthur Conan Doyle suggests a Non-Barking Dog Award:
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales betrayed his public trust by playing politics when his job is to enforce and uphold the law. By violating that trust, he's done a great disservice to his office. If White House officials ordered this purge, he should have refused them. If they insisted, he should have resigned in protest. Attorney General Gonzales should certainly resign now.
In the short story "Silver Blaze," Sherlock Holmes solves the mystery of a stolen racehorse by observing that the stable's guard dog didn't bark—hence, the intruder was not a stranger.Today's Non-Barking Dog Award goes to the National Review on Line. As of yesterday, you could search for "Gonzales" or "prosecutor" on The Corner.
There was not one mention of the prosecutor firing scandal - which currently leads the Fox News web site, CNN, NYT, Washington Post, USA Today, etc.This is only the latest, biggest and loose-est string in the unravelling of George W. Bush.
8 comments:
Senator Charles Schumer on Face the Nation:
...the Justice Department is different than any other department. In every other department, the chief cabinet officer is supposed to follow the president’s orders, request, without exception. But the Justice Department has a higher responsibility: rule of law and the Constitution. And Attorney General Gonzales in his department has been even more political than his predecessor. . . he either doesn’t accept or doesn’t understand that he is no longer just the president’s lawyer, but has a higher obligation to the rule of law and the Constitution, even when the president should not want it to be so. And so this department has been so political that I think for the sake of the nation, Attorney General Gonzales should step down.
Today's L.A. Times editorial, Blame Bush, not Gonzales:
. . . . President Bush appointed a man clearly unqualified for the job. . . . . We opposed Gonzales' nomination to be attorney general two years ago, arguing that the nation's top law enforcement job should go to someone who understands the limits as well as the power of the law, and someone who understands that his loyalty is to the Constitution as much as it is to the president.
. . . . too many shortcuts in the war on terror, was ample reason to disqualify him for attorney general.
. . . . broader disdain for legal niceties underlies recent revelations about the abuse of Patriot Act powers to secretly obtain private data about U.S. citizens, as well as the dismissal of U.S. attorneys.
. . . . as plenty of conservative Republicans have noted, this administration's incompetence means it probably will end up having to cede more executive authority than is desirable.
. . . . has been unwilling to accept that the federal government's legal institutions do not exist to further the political expedient of the moment. It's one thing for a new president to remove all U.S. attorneys who served a previous administration, as Bill Clinton did. It's quite another matter for the White House to meticulously monitor the political fealty of its own appointees and to seek to remove any deemed disloyal.
. . . . Alarming, but not surprising — not so long as Gonzales is attorney general.
Great comment, Yellow Dog. Glad to see you in action.
Also, two good comments.
Don't you love it when people like those in the administration say, "I take full responsibility" and then announce that they are not resigning, while asking their underlings to resign instead? They deserve what they're getting, I'm delighted it all happened in time to embarrass Bush in South America, and I hope it gets worse.
In his statement yesterday, Schumer said Gonzales 'did not tell the truth'.
We're not going to get anywhere, that way. Have our Democratic leaders no awareness of what the expression,
TO GIVE THE LIE?
means?
The Republicans will argue that the Patriot Act allows Federal Attorneys to be replaced without Senate confirmation. But the fact is, that provision was only inserted in the bill when it was in Senate-House Conference, which only Republicans were allowed to attend. That was the during the period of one-party government. Remember those dark days?
Exactly, LilBill: They take full responsibility, but then they don't resign.
Some guy on BBC today (don't the British see us better than we see our selves?) called this the use of the "Passive exonerative tense" by the Bush crime family. Doesn't that perfectly describe this crap? I'll say it again just so everyone gets this new syntax into their brain so they can recognize it coming before they actually hear the words.
(alert!)PASSIVE EXONERATIVE TENSE!!!
Yes, D.B. Cooper! Yes, give them the lie!
Sen Sununu vs. AG Gonzales