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Attorneygate: And the Moral of the Story Is . . .
There are several things that are now beyond obvious in the ongoing U.S. Attorney scandal: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is a serial liar, his job is not in jeopardy, the secret machinations of the Bush administration are more despotic than could ever have been imagined, its disdain for the rule of law is profound, and neither the president nor his AG have a shred of decency or shame.
This to me is the moral of the arcane, made-for-TV tale of the race to John Ashcroft’s hospital bed in 2004.
And you know what? Nobody is going to be able to do a goddamned thing about it.
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25 Responses to “Attorneygate: And the Moral of the Story Is . . .”
Be nice to them. At least they didn’t serve him a letter of termination.
We (people of all political affiliations) need to be in the streets protesting this garbage.
It’s abundantly clear that the President authorized what he knew were illegal domestic wiretaps. In clear violation of the Constitution and the law that established the FISA court to prevent these type of secret abuses.
The President is a felon, and we don’t have special counsels and investigations. This is simply insane.
I’ll ask again, where’s the outrage?
The problem is that from the beginning, this was painted by the GOP spin machine as a partisan witch hunt. When real problems began to surface beyond the initial allegations, that talk mostly faded, but the outrage is still mostly on the Democrats’ side. Until the Republicans care about the rule of law (remember how much they cared during the impeachment years) and politicization of the Justice Dept, the president will feel confident in his ability to keep Gonzales right where he wants him. No matter how bad this gets they will continue to stonewall, because they can still tell their base that its just a partisan witchhunt.
“Be nice to them. At least they didn’t serve him a letter of termination.”
LOL- Or divorce papers (Newt Gingrich)
kritter,
This is much bigger than just the Attorney General. We are talking about the President knowingly breaking the supreme law of the land.
Chris – ah, the constant disappointment that it obviously is for you to have missed the Sixties by just 40 some-odd years. No protests in the streets, no sit-ins, no tipping police cars over and setting them on fire. Bummer for you, dude.
That said, for all those (and I am one) that said the biggest transgression of Clinton was his failure to resign after it became known he lied to the Grand Jury and the American public, well, the shoe is on the other foot now.
If you called for Clinton to step down, you have to call for Gonzalez to step down, or expose yourself as nothing but a pandering, rudderless, apologist, partisan hack.
So, Gonzalez, be a man, do the right thing, and step down for the dignity of the office, and of the country.
Austin Roth,
Don’t ignore that the President signed off on the NSA program, knowing it was illegal. He even had the gall to go over Comey’s head to a hospital-ridden Ashcroft.
Does the President having no concern for the law or the Constitution not concern you at all? Shouldn’t we at least be calling for an investigation and possible impeachment proceedings?
We need a little “democracy promotion” at home, and badly.
AR,
Just so you know, I have been to protests. They just are big, and frequent, and even happened before the war in Iraq even started, which was unprecedented in timing and scale.
The problem is that no one pays attention. There is no real disruption of civil society, and there needs to be.
See, told you before that you are nothing more than a wannabe college Communist/Socialist/Radical, pining that the Sixties are no more.
The Revolution passed you buy (happened before you were born), and it wasn’t much of a Revolution anyway. All the old Radicals now drive Volvo’s, have diversified portfolios, and love a good bottle of California Cabernet.
AustinRoth – Do you have a point you wish to make about the content of Shaun’s posting? Or are you satisfied with just tthrowing around sarcastic comments, which only you find witty.
Chris- I know -its about politicizing the Justice Dept. Now the speculation is that Bush/Cheney wanted Ashcroft out because he had a modicum of independence. He may have put in Gonzales because he knew the little worm would kowtow to his every whim, and he knew he could control him.
BTW, I have always respected Andy Card, so its disheartening to see the extent that he was willing to go to prove his loyalty to Bush. Gonzales reminds me of Smithers from the Simpsons – he’s the ultimate sycophant without a shred of integrity. The Senate is planning a vote of no-confidence- and if the GOP continues to support Gonzales, I hope the Dems use it in the next election to widen their majority.
jdledell –
Yep, and I made it in my first post. Try reading first, commenting second. That way you don’t look so stupid.
Ha, ha, AustinRoth doesn’t know that California is famous for its chardonneys not its cabernets, therefore anything else he says is without merit, ha, ha.
“Yep, and I made it in my first post. Try reading first, commenting second. That way you don’t look so stupid.”
Looks like you are doing pretty good on the stupid front yourself, gasbag.
When we see our laws broken, and recieve what amounts to “yeah I did it, so what” from the president and his entire cabinet we got a problem. That’s called anarchy/monarchy at the highest level, and the patriots of this country of all political stripes should be out in the streets shutting things down untill the law is applied to ALL, not just those without supreme powers.
You are advocating the president as long as he’s of your liking is allowed to piss on our constituion, well f*** you, and take yourself to some craphole dictatorship/monarchy if you like that type of governing because this is the US and we do democracy and rule of law here. Maybe Myanmar is more your speed, but getting W and Co. in power there might be a stretch without all the zombies to vote him in, and the army to play with.
Pyst – exactly where did you see any comment about the President in my post? I made no statement whatsoever about Bush, so you are simply projecting.
The comment by jdledell asked if I was going to comment on the subject of Shaun’s original post, which was Gonzalez, and which I commented on. So, my comment to him was direct, and on the point, as was my original post (after a dig at Chris).
So F*** u 2.
CK – Judgment Day: Part Deux
Pyst – your use of coded profanity is no excuse for my retaliation in kind. I apologize.
AR is one of the 25% of Americans who think things are just fine and dandy. And he also thinks that if something were wrong, it would be impossible to fix it. That pretty much makes him ignorant of the entirety of human history.
One out of five of AR’s comments wasn’t a pejorative / ad hominem laced personal attack… it was an appology. A definate improvement from previous threads.
AR – How ’bout just knocking off the personal attacks and try commenting on the topic at hand? Just asking.
[...] whining yesterday that there’s nothing that anyone can do to force out disgraced Attorney General Alberto [...]
Steve -
You too are guilty of not reading.
My first post was self-referential, talking about myself and others who had generally called for Clinton to resign for lying, and was not pointed at anyone in particular.
Post 3 was a reply to someone criticizing me and telling me to do something I had already done, and therefore they were being stupid.
Post 4 was an in-kind response to Pyst saying exactly what he had said to me, for which I apologized.
However, I won’t apologize for calling you stupid for not reading the posts as written, and trying to misrepresent them.
What?
That’s like saying Clinton lied so Monica Lewinsky should never be allowed in the White House again.
No, it is saying that if you called for Clinton to step down for lying under oath (which he did), then how can you not call for Gonzalez to step down for lying under oath (which he did to Congress).
I am not sure why anyone is having an issue with this.
If you believe (as I do) that getting lying under oath should result in a public official such as the AG or President stepping down for the good of the office and the country, how could you take any other position?
Either you believe that ignoring an oath is serious, or you don’t. And it was mainly the Right and conservatives that took that position during the Clinton scandal (although a few Dems did too, in fairness).
It seems hypocritical to me that now there are those on the Right that say there is no reason for Gonzalez to resign (though that groups is shrinking by the hour). I was simply calling out THAT group.
And how does believing that in any way relate to Lewinsky herself?
So we should just ignore the person who ordered him to lie under oath?
This article and string was about Gonzalez. Why does everyone want to make it about Bush?
Find one tiny, substantiated piece of proof (not conjecture or third-party related recollections of conversations) that the President ordered Gonzalez to lie under oath, and yes, I would call for his resignation as well.
Suborning perjury is itself a form of perjury, too.
And please, don’t bring up the SOTU speech. Whether it was a lie, a mis-characterization, selective picking of intelligence, or an honest belief at that moment in time will fill many, many scholarly books for years after he leaves office.