The past week has seen a blizzard of the usual attacks from the Republican noise machine, chief of which is naturally "Clinton did it," with Karl Rove saying that the previous Administration (i.e., Clinton) replaced 123 federal prosecutors.
As it happened, both Bush I and Clinton replaced all 93 prosecutors at the beginnings of their presidencies as part of the traditional change of power, not in the middle of their administrations like this. Sidney Blumental in Salon.com on 22 March (http://www.salon.com...) said "A report issued on Feb. 22 from the Congressional Research Service revealed that between 1981 and 2006, only five of the 486 U.S. attorneys failed to finish their four-year terms, and none were fired for political reasons." White House protestations that it is the Democrats who are politicizing the firings might be considered prima facie evidence that politicization was the actual intent of the Republican President since we have learned over time it is the habit of Republicans to accuse the opposition of what they themselves are doing, as a smoke screen or cover.
The ostentatiously stern warning from Bush refusing to allow public testimony under oath rings false: What is Bush really trying to hide? Listening to Dubya's tone of voice we hear a petulant adolescent who is engaged in a snow job (really, "Snow" job, listen to Press Secretary Tony Snow's pious mouthings about the whole affair, exactly the opposite of what he said during the Clinton impeachment investigations).
Caught in the act, Bush is blustering, intent on creating a constitutional crisis which will throw the question of subpoenas from Congress to the Executive Branch into the courts, where Bush feels comfortable with conservative Republican judges who favor unitary executive power- they stopped the Florida re-count and declared him President, didn't they?- thus delaying, possibly for years, a judicial resolution of the question. By refusing to declassify information in the Plame case Bush stopped Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald in his tracks, and limited the damage to Scooter Libby. What else could we now expect?
As for politicization, we have this item taken from an internal e-mail recently released, dated Jan. 6, 2005, which quoted Rove as asking "how we planned to proceed regarding the U.S. attorneys." Three days later there was another e-mail, "Re: Question from Karl Rove, as an operational matter we would like to replace 15-20 percent of the current U.S. attorneys -- the underperforming ones ...The vast majority of U.S. attorneys, 80-85 percent I would guess, are doing a great job, are loyal Bushies."
Some of the fired prosecutors, like John McKay of Washington and David Iglesias of New Mexico (himself a Republican) have also stated publicly that they were hassled by national Republicans, Congresspersons and Senators about either speeding up cases against Democrats, instituting "voter fraud" indictments when evidence was lacking, creating illegal immigration investigations more less out of whole cloth, or halting investigations and cases against Republicans prior to the November elections.
U. S. Attorney Carol Lam in California who successfully prosecuted Congressman Randy Cunningham was fired just as she was following up on the Randy Trail, which was leading to prominent Republicans like Brent Wilkes and Dusty Foggo (who is coincidentally chief of, ahem, contracting at the CIA, heh, heh).
Of what sort of "under performance" are these prosecutors guilty? Apparently of doing their jobs in an unpolitical and effective manner, i.e., not being what Blumenthal calls "the Republican Office of the Holy Inquisition." They did not prosecute enough Democrats and actually had the temerity to investigate a few Republicans!
Also: Where are the strangely missing e-mails? That is, there is a huge 16-day gap between those e-mails (quoted above), at the beginning of the purge which displayed Rove's key position at the heart of the firings, and the later ones after the purge was already well underway. "The Gap" showed up in the same brusque dump from the Justice Department, and would probably show who authorized the final hit list, the method of the actual purge, the "explanations" for the firings. In other words, what did Karl Rove know, when did he know it- and on whose orders did the firings proceed? Were the relevant e-mails ah, destroyed? Like Nixon's 18 minutes of erased tape, no doubt.
Then there are Republican officials, like Senator Domenici and Representative Heather Wilson, both of New Mexico, who meddled in U.S. Attorney Iglesias's cases, and who may well face obstruction of justice charges. These two, at least, have already hired attorneys in anticipation of exactly that. There are many, many more Republican functionaries apparently guilty of the same charge. The more we learn the more virulent the corruption at every level.
It seems self-evident that Bush is protecting not only Republican big wigs from obstruction of justice charges, but more importantly his own chain of command: Gonzales did not invent the purge, he was following orders, and by protecting Rove from testifying under oath, it would seem Mr. Bush is protecting himself as either the originator of the purge, or the one who gave the final orders to Rove to Gonzales to Sampson (Gonzales' Chief of Staff, who has already resigned as the first fall guy).
This is what happens when you have a gang posing as a political party determined to turn their elected position into a permanent, one-party state so they can continue to plunder the treasury until the country is sucked dry. There are those who seem already to have decided they have siphoned off the most they can, and are getting out while the getting is good: Halliburton is on its way to Dubai. Who will be the next Republican fat cat to take his winnings and slink off?
Here is a link to a good primer on congressional oversight and related Supreme Court decisions upholding it:
Isn't there a single journalist in the White House Press Corps who has done some research on these issues? White House correspondents who care about doing their job are going to be needing this kind of historical context every day from now on.
Snow will say something outrageous and more often than not there is no follow up "why" question (which would probably blow a hole the size of a football field on his pontifications and obfuscations). A simple "why", nothing else, would reveal the coverups, the clouding, and the deceiving.
And I would like to see honest, thorough, not politically motivated investigations after the 2008 election which might, if the evidence was substantial, support criminal charges against Bush and Cheney
That $140,000 payment to MZM, and then the same amount for the boat, looks awfully suspicious.
Here's a thought. Not only is the Internet catching heretofore unreported corruption, but so is the e-mail system.
Rove and Gonzales should both be out of jobs. Gonzales for gross incompetence. Rove for engaging in behavior that is criminal and amoral in principle--truly Nixonian.
I see this as more of an abuse of power--and the corrosive effect of power under one party rule. I think there is actually a real danger long-term if the GOP is so thoroughly damaged that it cannot function as a legitimate opposition party, because of this.
The GOP is clearly confronted with a clear choice. Will it aid and abet criminal behavior by the White House, or will it get some separation from one of the most inept and corrupt administrations that our nation has ever seen.
I don't see an easy way out of this impasse.
We have had periods when strong currents of change subsumed the two-party system, such as during the run-up to the Civil War, when during the election immediately preceding the outbreak of hostilities several parties fielded serious presidential candidates. Then there was the period after that War, when Republicans ruled as victors in that War and castigated Democrats as the Party of "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion." That, too, was a period of big business run amok and of vicious corruption among Republicans, even sporting its own contested and questionable presidential election.
Let's see if a rump Republican Conservative Party surfaces on the right for the next election. Or, worse, a rump Progressive Party on the left... or both.
This whole line of (faulty) reasoning about not supoenning (can't spell it but you know what I mean Rove et al b/c they couldn't give candid counsel to the president if they knew that could be hauled in to testify before Congress at any time is pure slippery slope.
Evidence from the emails has surfaced that support the claims that the dismissals were purely political--and so this investigation is not the partisan witch hunt that Bush would have Americans believe.
Of course these Bushies should testify under oath about these dismissals--otherwise what we have is hear say and a waste of everyone's time.
And in the meantime 8 people have been fired under a cloud of lies and innuendo that is harming their professional and personal reputations.
1. It will be shown that Rove and other prominent Republicans are behind much vote fraud in this country and two or three other countries as well (maybe more).
2. It will be revealed that many more government posts which are traditionally life long were filled with Bushies instead, having had the life-longs fired. Actually, this is already true. No need to speculate.
3. It will be shown that, although Rove was the hatchet man, Bush had a habit of drinking and ranting about his enemies at the White House saying things like "f-k 'em over" about those who disagreed with his policies (this has been reported by insiders). What specifically was meant we will learn, but no doubt Joseph Wilson can elaborate.
4. George Bush is a practiced socipathic liar and uses religious language to cloak and justify much of his lying.
5.Bush's ego is so big that he really believes people like Pat Robertson who tell him he is God's messenger.
6. Bush has had lapses into homosexual behavior while in the White House. (Take your hand off that man's leg!)
7. Bush knows whether or Ann Coulter is really a man. (Just for laughs)
8. Bush and Cheney have drained the Treasury through their bogus military boon-doogle contracts stuffing away a few trillion for a rainy day. Much of the money has been funneled to their own private mercenaries.
9. The US employed mercenaries are instigating much of the internicene hostilities in Iraq on the theory that its cheaper if they kill each other than if we do it. This is a strategy similar to aiding both sides in the Iraq-Iran war.
10. Rumsfeld is still running the Pentagon from a moldy room in the basement. They call him the Phantom of the Pentagon.
Conspiracy theories usually give me a headache, and I used automatically to reject them (along with UFO abductions) but after 7 years of these neo-Republicans I am changing my mind, and suspect that at least some of them are only too true, and many others are unfortunately all too likely. Robert Parry at consortium.com has quite a rap sheet on the Bush Family as a whole, going back to Iran hostage crisis, oil deals, Iran Contra and beyond.
One of the nominees for US attorney was involved in blocking black and hispanic servicemen from the voting roles based on the fact that they were not living at their residence. They were deployed so they weren't at home.
In *** Vanity Fair, the gay marriage-bashing [Karl] Rove swoons on about the first time he laid eyes on Dubya:http://www.metrotime..."I can literally remember what he was wearing: An Air National Guard flight jacket, cowboy boots, blue jeans ... he was exuding more charisma than any one individual should be allowed to have ... you know, wow."
In America, there are no kings...let the questioning (oversight) begin !
Of course this could even be applied to the Democratic Party. Generally though we think of a conspiracy as something nefarious which happens in secret. If that is true we must admit they are going on all the time. The theoretical part is because we may not have proof that a particular conspiracy is happening.
However, Watergate was a conspiracy and was found out. In short, believing in conspiracies does not make you a kook, and it doesn't mean some aren't real. In cases where there is some proof and a proven record that the parties involved have engaged in criminal activities in the past, I'd say believing in some conspiracies is realistic. We would be neglegent in protecting our democracy if we took the naive view that no one would ever conspire to eliminate it.
WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales approved plans to fire several U.S. attorneys in a November meeting, according to documents released Friday that contradict earlier claims that he was not closely involved in the dismissals.The Nov. 27 meeting, in which the attorney general and at least five top Justice Department officials participated, focused on a five-step plan for carrying out the firings of the prosecutors, Justice Department officials said late Friday.
I watched the entire C-span coverage of Robert Mueller's "oops I'm sorry" testimony about how phone and other records were requested by the FBI under allegedly emergency circumstances, some of which weren't really emergencies, and how a recent audit showed that the FBI systematically failed to follow up with the safeguards built into the Patriot Act to seek formal approval for a request for information after the information was obtained.
If the head of the Army had to resign because of what took place at Walter Reed, Mueller should have already vacated the District of Columbia, but he hasn't. And our President hasn't asked for his resignation either.