A Moment of Historical Maturity

Are we as a country mature enough in our collective ego and our adherence to justice to admit that our government has perpetrated crimes against humanity, and to bring the criminals to justice?

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Gonzales, Addington, Yoo, Rove etc. They are clearly guilty. Will we do what is right and just?

The next president will need to do that; which candidate will? No republican, for sure. Edwards, maybe. Obama, maybe. Clinton, probably not.

The Travesty of Justice

TPM's Paul Kiel gives a rundown of who has resigned at the Dept. of Justice recently. The following is my editing of his data:

1. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, 8/27/07.
   
2. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, 5/14/07.
   
3. Acting Assoc. AG, William Mercer (the Dept. #3), withdrawing from the nomination 6/22/07
   
4. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales' chief of staff, 3/13/07.
   
5. Department White House liaison, Monica Goodling, 4/6/07
   
6. Michael Elston, McNulty's chief of staff, 6/15/07
   
7. Executive Director of the Executive Office of United States Attorneys Michael Battle, mid-February.
   
8. Bradley Schlozman, an attorney in the Counsel to the Director staff at the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, formerly the U.S. attorney for Kansas City and a former acting assistant attorney for the Civil Rights Division, mid August.
   
9. Assistant AG for the Civil Rights Division Wan Kim, 8/23/07
   

To recap: The AG, his chief of staff, his 2 senior deputies, and other heads of offices. Resigned. Their families must have been lonely, eh?

While the morons of the world still think that the Attorney Scandal is just an 'overblown personnel matter' - and it's not - the scandal did reveal that the DOJ is filled to the gorge with incompetents, blind ideologues, and scoundrels.

It's hard to explain to the detached American voting public - whose brains seem stuck on an endless TiVo loop of monkeys in clown suits - that this is a bad thing. But the department of Justice is important. More important than American Idol and Paris Freakin' Hilton, if you can imagine.

NYTimes Editorial about Gonzales

I hate to admit it, but they wrote a durn fine editorial. The choice quotes:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has finally done something important to advance the cause of justice. He has resigned. But his departure alone cannot remove the dark cloud that hangs over the Justice Department. President Bush needs to choose a new attorney general of unquestioned integrity who would work to make the department worthy of its name again — and provide the mandate to do it. Congress needs to continue to investigate the many scandals Mr. Gonzales leaves behind.

When Mr. Gonzales was appointed, it seemed doubtful that he would be able to put aside his years as Mr. Bush’s personal lawyer, which stretched back to the Texas governor’s office, and represent the interests of the American people. He never did.

In many ways, Mr. Gonzales turned out to be the ultimate “loyal Bushie,” a term his Justice Department chief-of-staff used so incredibly inappropriately to describe what his department was looking for in its top prosecutors.

It was just that kind of craven politics — the desire to co-opt the power of the government to win elections — that was the driving force in Mr. Gonzales’s Justice Department. Dedicated and capable United States attorneys were fired for insisting on doing their jobs with integrity — for refusing to put people in jail, or shield them from prosecution, simply to help Republicans win elections. Lawyers were hired for nonpolitical jobs based on party enrollment and campaign contributions, and top members of Mr. Gonzales’s staff attended pre-election political briefings at the White House led by Karl Rove and his aides.

[snip]

There was a more basic problem with Mr. Gonzales’ tenure: he did not stand up for the Constitution and the rule of law, as an attorney general must. This administration has illegally spied on Americans, detained suspects indefinitely as “enemy combatants,” run roughshod over the Geneva Conventions, violated the Hatch Act prohibitions on injecting politics into government and defied Congressional subpoenas. In each case, Mr. Gonzales gave every indication of being on the side of the lawbreakers, not the law.

Mr. Gonzales signed off on the administration’s repugnant, and disastrous, torture policy when he was the White House counsel. He later helped stampede Congress into passing the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which endorsed illegal C.I.A. prisons where detainees may be tortured and established kangaroo courts in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to keep detained foreigners in custody essentially for life. He helped cover up and perpetuate Mr. Bush’s illegal wiretapping programs, both in the counsel’s job and as attorney general. The F.B.I. under his stewardship abused powers it was given after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the name of enhanced national security.

Mr. Gonzales will hardly be a tough act to follow, but the standard for the next attorney general should not be set that low.

[snip]

The next attorney general will have two critical tasks. First, he or she must get to the bottom of the scandals hovering over the department. Mr. Gonzales played defense, as if it were Congress’s job to discover what laws his department may have broken, and his job to thwart it. The next attorney general should appoint a credible, independent investigator to look into the prosecutors’ firings and likely Hatch Act violations and make clear that the investigation will be permitted to follow the facts where they lead — including, as appears likely, to the White House.

[snip]

Mr. Gonzales, for all of his undeniable deficiencies, merely reflected the principles of this administration. His resignation is a necessary but hardly sufficient step in restoring the nation’s commitment to the rule of law.

Gonzales & Rove

So Gonzales has tendered his resignation. It's a surprise. But it shouldn't be. It's a surprise because - like with Rove's resignation - it's both the smart and moral thing to do. And Bush doesn't do smart and moral. It's that simple.

More later.

Best Moment of April 19 Gonzales Hearing

This is old news now but this short clip, 71 seconds, from the first day of the Judiciary committee testimony of Attorney General Gonzales is the most telling example of why "Fredo" is the epitome of these past 6 years of fiasco.

Some of the fiascoes are Rove created (e.g. the destruction of the wall between Church and State, the insane wedge issues, the ignorance of congressional corruption, the politicization of every nook and cranny of the executive branch), some are Cheney (e.g. every stitch of our disastrous foreign policy). But the most sordid are the Bush ones - because they aren't animated by greed (Cheney), or power (Rove) but from good-ole-boy incompetence.

This clip is from the very beginning of that day's testimony. After the Democratic chair (Sen. Leahy) comes the ranking Republican, Sen. Specter. Theoretically, this should be an ally, but in this clip we see Specter's thin veneer of friendliness to his party's executive branch employee shatter.

Ya see, Specter was just uttering pale bromides to ease General Fredo into the testimony, but Fredo can't resist mouthing off a belligerent self-defense.

Lessons to be Learned

Lesson #1: As far as I'd seen this was the first and last time that Fredo mouthed off. The rest of that day, and all subsequent appearances to the Judiciary, he has been eerily pliant. He's taking a savage ego beating. Over and over he needs to behave as a brain-dead buffoon. Yet commentators have been assuming that he is either (a) said pliant buffoon or (b) a superbly calm professional liar.

Thus, this clip shows that he does truly want to fight back and say, to quote his namesake: "It ain't the way I wanted it! I can handle things! I'm smart! Not like everybody says... like dumb... I'm smart and I want respect! "

Yet the demand for respect was ridiculous and shot down immediately by someone who was supposed to be an ally. I believe that Fredo is a clone-surrogate of Bush - note that they even sound alike, in accent & in whiny idiocy - and that after a token protest of their value they bend over and take their humiliation. I think that in every idiotic act of this administration, Bush puts up a Fredo-like protest, is shot down and shown to be a dolt, and then he swallows his meager bully pride and allows Uncle Dick or Aunt Karl to run the show.

Lesson #2: is that no other news agency pointed out this exchange! I reiterate that I believe it's the most important moment in this whole massive scandal. Oh well.

Backpost started April 19, 2007 finished 8/9/07. All I had was the Youtube link.

Harper's Magazine Blog

There's a new news blog on the block and it's a good 'un. Harper's Magazine, which has been around for a loooong time, has some dude named Scott Horton (pic left) blogging things from a legal & political angel. It's a good read. See, for instance, what he has to say about the erasure of the emails:

It looks like the tactics of the White House in its response to the Congressional investigation have just entered a new phase. If a responsible prosecutor were presented with evidence suggesting even the possibility of the conscious destruction of evidence, he would take immediate steps: subpoena the relevant White House staffers' personal PCs, subpoena and depose the personnel involved in the alleged 'accidental' erasure, and send FBI agents to seize the RNC's servers which were 'erased.' Which explains the ever more urgent need for the appointment of a special prosecutor in this case.

Impeachment, Gonzales

As I've said before, I am looking forward to the impeachment of the major up-foulers in the Executive Branch. It should be inevitable, given the levels of malfeasance and criminality. Wireless wiretaps and torture lead the day but the fabricated intelligence that lead to the Iraq War, or the negligence with Katrina could also work.

It's similar to how Saddam will be executed for a teeny-weeny mass murder (hundreds of victims) instead of the full hundreds of thousands. Murder is murder, dead will be dead. I just want Saddam to stay alive until all his misdeeds are put into public record. Killing him too quick may prevent us from finding the full truth (and who else participated).

So too with Bush. He should be impeached for every single sickbag thing he's done. And his dog Cheney too. How the information is revealed will determine whether he'll go out like Nixon or stay in office like Reagan/Bush 41. My feeling tends to Nixon because the horrors were domestic. All Reagan/Bush did in Iran-Contra was dupe congress and fund atrocities abroad. Yawn. Nixon, however, helped cover up for a freakin' burglary. It was pathetic.

However, it's not just that the American people don't particularly mind if a president declares a stupid war but they do care about criminal negligence on these shores. Nixon was impeached because the FBI hated him and kept the heat on, leaking information from the Grand Jury to Woodward and Bernstein, etc. The FBI killed Nixon, the FBI/CIA didn't care about Iran-Contra.

That's why Bush is likely to go down like Nixon - because Bush has tried to destroy the CIA and Bush/Rumsfeld has been abusing the military. Two big institutions with a lot of domestic support (military) and/or access to skeletons (CIA). If the Democrats play this right, they'll get all the info they need from the Army/CIA and Bush will be toast. The Republicans will dump him so they can save 2008.

My prediction of impeachment, now that the Democrats won, is that as soon as the water starts to boil, Cheney will bail. Health reasons, ya know. If we're lucky, he'll go out like Casey. But his early departure can come with a promise of leniency if he names names. He would, too. It's just that he's the top prize, but like Kaiser Sose he'll leave the Meathead In Chief to take the fall.

Anyway, when Cheney leaves, Kaiser Rove will find someone to replace him. At this point, were the GOP to have decency and sanity, they would find a lone Republican with a brain and a heart. Someone untainted by this administration who can plausibly run in 2008 from a position of experience and strength. Any of the putative, moderate, front-runners like McCain or Giuliani. Or someone completely free and clean, like John Danforth. That won't happen. My prediction is that they'll choose Alberto Gonzales.

Yup, Torturin' Al. He'll be chosen because (as seen below) the GOP believes they can purchase respectability by trotting out their token minorities. Who cares if Alberto is a horrible, talentless lackey? What matters is that he is loyal to the Bush Family and can use his skin-color as a get-out-jail-free card.

Once the VP is in place, Bush's impeachment will follow. He may resign before it gets too far. I hope he won't and he actually might not.

Bush's defining characteristic, even more than his staggering stupidity or his lack of any positive moral quality (compassion? no; respect for human dignity? no; generosity? no), is his need to appear strong despite crushing internal weakness. He's a bully; a dumb, rich bully.

Being a dumb rich bully leads to his well documented inability to distinguish between success and failure. Exhibit A: Iraq; B: Katrina; etc. So in the disused piece of meat that is his brain, he may think that sticking through an impeachment hearing will be the strong, manly thing. He'll repeatedly ask "What Would Jesus Do [Were Jesus mean stupid and corrupt]?" and come up with the answer that he wants.

It would be nice to have a successful impeachment after 217 years; to finally set the bar for malfeasance to come.

All this means that we may be looking at a President Gonzales or Rice in a year.

I Apologize

Seriously, I need to apologize. My brother asked me if I should be so happy that Ashcroft was resigning because 'maybe they'll find someone worse.' I said, well sometimes the Devil You Know is already bad enough.

I was wrong. The new AG candidate, Alberto R. Gonzales, is another one of the GOP tokens but this time, with his own baggage. According to many reports (This from washingtonpost.com), Gonzales may be responsible for the "legal" decisions that threw away the Geneva conventions and led to the horrors of Abu Ghraib.

My brother was right, I was wrong, I apologize. In the future, when trying to predict the actions of the President, always choose the most despicable path.