President Bush's Warning:
I watched President Bush's statement last night warning Congress about its investigation into the U.S. Attorney purge story, and I thought it was a remarkably bad performance. President Bush seemed weak, petty, and defensive. His rhetoric struck me as absurd: Given reason to think that at least some of the U.S. Attorneys were fired for not being excessively partisan, it falls flat to object to an investigation on the ground that the investigation is excessively partisan. No wonder that the House Judiciary Committee has already responded by authorizing the Committee Chair to subpoena White House officials if they will not testify voluntarily.
All people will see is the partisanship, and Bush is banking on the fact the details are obscure enough that when people see Congress playing politics they will remember this in 2008 when Republicans charge all the present players with doing nothing else than playing politics. The longer this is in the news the less positive goals Congress will reach.
If he hadn't put up a fight the news would be purely about some perceived Bush misconduct about firing people he had the right to fire. Now it's about partisanship, and no one is going to win that fight. Bush is not up for re-election and none of his close advisers are either. So he can afford not to win. Congressional Democrats, however, can't afford the stalemate.
Democrats were elected to be different. If they go witch hunting over no real, clearly explained, illegality, they are not different at all.
Bush is playing distraction and delay. The Democrats are at the pass and about to fight. Much better for them to find a battlefield they can clearly define and win, but they won't because of the pride involved.
Because unless you can say the firing of the US attorneys was clearly illegal, and explain why in a couple of sentences or less, the whole core issue has no traction.
It seems now more than ever that a Democratic Congress isn't going to let the President ever dismiss an appointee that he has the power to because they will think its some big political scandal and Karl Rove is behind it all.
I don't think your idea of political traction is accurate.
Asking that Rove and Meier testify under oath, and on record, is holding a "show trial"? I guess the analogy that the Prez wants us to draw is that the House Judiciary Committee is like, oh, let's say, Stalin, and some other evil Communnists, and that there's a risk that, if Meier testifies, someone's going to sentence Alberto Gonzalez to death, take him out behind the House office buildings, and summarily shoot him?
IMPEACH, already!
Firing an attorney for investigating your political cronies, or for refusing to bring unsupported charges against your political foes is obstruction of justice.
There. That's one sentence. Good enough for you?
Granted, I haven't proven anything with the above assertion, but given the ever-shifting rationales from the administration it bears investigation into whether this is what actually happened. We're looking for straight answers, and all we get is half truths, obfuscation, stonewalling, and an ever shifting narrative where the blame bounces from Meiers to Solomon to Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Having Rove et.al. testify in public and under oath just might elicit some straight answers.
That's the simple and direct answer, the Fred Thompsonesque answer.
Let's see.
The US Attorney from New Mexico gets a call just before last November's election, at home, from a Republican Senator, asking if anyone is going to be indicted before November in a local corruption investigation involving Democrats. When the answer is no, the Senator hangs up the phone.
The Washington case, while it lacks the sexiness of a menacing phone call from a Senator, is nearly as bad.
I think it's just poor judgment to write this off as a situation the general public will see as partisan politics with no "there" there. I've told the New Mexico story to any number of colleagues who asked me what the scandal is all about, and to a man they've replied "wow, that's really bad." Not a single one has demanded a two-sentence explanation of the "clear illegality."
Frankly, how is this different from any Bush performance? This is the root of all of his problems: his inability to articulately convey his message to America. So much of our current political wailing would/could have been avoided if he had been able to make his case. He can't, and never has been. It just goes to show how horrid the Democrat candidates were that could not defeat him.
No, dismissing them all at once, at the start of a new Administration, is common. In fact, that was the very word John Ashcroft used when he announced that Bush would replace all of Clinton's US Attorneys.
If Congress is going to go so far to assert their own immunities to make the bald claim that a lawfully issued search warrant requested by the Justice Department and issued by a Federal Judge violates the separation of powers act, as they did in the Jefferson Case, how are the going to insist that Karl Rove testify about lawful advice he gave to the president about exercising his lawful authority?
Of course, my anecdote proves absolutely nothing and I make no claims except that I accurately quoted the participants.
First of all, "lawful duties" pretty much begs the question, no?
Second of all, as a practical matter, its not true. As many point out, Clinton tried to keep his aides from testifying, and yet Congress still managed to get sworn testimony out of all of the following:
Samuel Berger, National Security Adviser
Lanny Breuer, Special Counsel
Lloyd Cutler, Special Counsel
Lisa Caputo, Press Secretary to the First Lady
Charles Easley, Director, White House Office of Security
W. Neil Eggleston, Associate Counsel
Mark Gearan, Assistant to the President for Communications
Deborah Gorham, Assistant to the Associate Counsel
Nancy Heinreich, Deputy Assistant
Carolyn Huber, Special Assistant
Harold Ickes, Deputy Chief of Staff
Joel Klein, Deputy Counsel
Evelyn Lieberman, Deputy Press Secretary
Mark Lindsay, Director of White House Management and Administration
Bruce Lindsey, Special Adviser
Capricia Marshall, Special Assistant to the First Lady
Thomas McLarty, Counselor
Cheryl Mills, Deputy Counsel
Bobby Nash, Director of Presidential Personnel
Stephen Neuwirth, Associate Counsel
Dimitri Nionakis, Associate Counsel
Beth Nolan, Associate Counsel
John Podesta, Staff Secretary
John Quinn, Chief of Staff to the Vice President
Charles Ruff, Counsel
Jane Sherburne, Special Counsel
Clifford Sloan, Associate Counsel
Patty Solis, Director of Scheduling for the First Lady
George Stephanopoulos, Senior Policy Adviser
Patsy Thomasson, Assistant Director for Presidential Personnel
Margaret Williams, Chief of Staff to the First Lady
Furthermore, I am aware of no cases in which Congress demanded a subpoena, the White House never submitted, and Congress did not withdraw the subpoena, resulting in either a permanent stalemate or a juduicial decision in the White House's favor that implied Congress lacks the authority as a general principle.
If your argument is simply that no White House has ever fought a Congressional subpoena and won (or, maybe I am wrong, and there are particular instances where the won, probably under some sort of limited, specialized interest), you probably just come out and say that.
Just curious.
The reason is to keep a show going, hence the term "show trial", and, by pumping endless smoke about Bush, convince some poor soul watching CNN in a group home that there really was someone done wrong.
The other thing is, guessing at Scooter Libby's legal bills, there exists the strong possibility of ruining, bankrupting, anybody they don't like by filing false charges of perjury.
The Clintons did that when they fired the travel office folks. Couldn't let it go. Just because they could, and because they're naturally vile, the sicced the FBI onto the guys and ruined them financially. I guess the dems think of that as a feature, not a bug, of partisan posing.
Except there's no indication Rove and Miers are going to be asked about advice they gave to President Bush, and if that was the case, there's no way Bush would let them talk about it without being sworn, either.
To the extent that we "know" that Lam was fired in order to impede the investigations into the CIA and Jerry Lewis, that MacKay was fired for failing to present a baseless indictment that would hand Rossi the election, and that Iglesias was fired for failing to indict two New Mexico officials before the 2006 election (and I am not sure whether the indictment was not handed down because it was either baseless), Democrats obviously do not have enough evidence to make those facts clear, and need to present more to either justify impeachment of whichever official, to convince the DOJ to prosecute their own, or to create sufficient public pressure to present more oversight of executive misconduct.
Also, Democrats "know" that 90% of all public corruption cases were against Democrats over the last few years. What we do not know whether this was due to recruiting the "right kind of Bushie" who would only prosecute Democrats, or explicit instructions that may constitute illegal obstruction of justice or prosecutorial misconduct.
But of course none of this is as important, as you know, steroids in baseball. What a shock to find out that Barry Bonds uses steroids? And Jose Casenco? Who would have guessed!
OK, I've seen this story or variations - so (1) is there proof that this really happened; (2) if so, what is this Senator's name; (3) I contend that the scandal here is not whether the President fired the attorney general, but the Senator's phone call, so why doesn't Congress supoena this "U.S. Attorney from New Mexico" and get him to tell us this Senator's name? Oh, but that would involve investigating another Congresscritter, and they would not want to set that precedent.
This is just business-as-usual petty Beltway politics blown into a bogus "national scandal". As a citizen and taxpayer I'm angry with both Congress for wasting their and the President's time on this.
Hence the investigation and subpoenas--and the temptation to find out what was included in those two weeks' worth of emails from late November '06 that the administration left out of its document dump.
Actually, we do. Like what transpired between November 15th and December 4th of 2006. In the most recent document dumps there's not a single email included from those 18 days - why the gap? Do you have a plausible explanation?
Left my foot on the pedal again... whoops!
Is this so common Mr. Field? I got my information from this wall street journal story
that stated "Previous Presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, had both retained holdovers from the previous Administration and only replaced them gradually as their tenures expired". However when Mr. Clinton became president, "Janet Reno, his nominal superior, simultaneously fired all 93 U.S. Attorneys in March 1993. Ms. Reno--or Mr. Hubbell--gave them 10 days to move out of their offices."
So unless the journal is wrong on facts, it was not common before Mr. Clinton for a president to fire the whole slate of U.S. attorneys at once. Perhaps the Bush administration wanted to follow the Clinton example of stupidity or partisanship(very possible), or get rid of some political flunkies. I don't know exactly how much attorneys were fired when President Bush joined office, all I have read so far is that it was recommended they all be fired, but not all were. Someone may have to point me to some stats on that. Regardless I stand behind the rest of my previous post. Look to see which congressman, there have been some named, tried to obstruct justice, and subpoena them. Do not attack the president's "right" to fire. That is a losing battle.
There's only one Republican Senator from New Mexico. His name is Pete Domenici. There was also a similar call from Republican Congresswoman Heather Wilson.
The US Attorney in question has already testified to Congress. He also has an op-ed in today's NYT where he tells his side of the story. Domenici, for his part, has admitted the fact of the phone call, and frankly hasn't denied a whole ton of the specific allegations about what was said. It's clearly not normal for a Senator to personally call up a US Attorney at home to ask how an investigation is going.
I'm sure that as a citizen and a taxpayer, you were equally outraged when Congress spent all kinds of your money investigating things like Bill Clinton's Christmas card list. However, the present scandal has quite a bit more substance to it. As a citizen and taxpayer, I don't want to live in a country where officials try to win elections by pressuring prosecutors to indict members of the opposing party.
uh Clem: maybe Rosemary Woods had her foot on the server--oh wait, that was 18 minutes, not days. 18 is to scandal like 42 is the answer to all questions perhaps.
Yes. An admission by the Senator.
(2) if so, what is this Senator's name;
Pete Dominici (R-NM)
(3) I contend that the scandal here is not whether the President fired the attorney general, but the Senator's phone call, so why doesn't Congress supoena this "U.S. Attorney from New Mexico" and get him to tell us this Senator's name?
We already know who it is. And he admitted to it. So has Congresswoman Heather Wilson (R-NM)
Pete Domenici. Domenici admits making the call, but claims it was not an attempt to pressure Iglesias. Dominici also admits that he called Justice and asked them to fire Iglesias after the conversation, and Iglesias was indeed fired a week later.
Others have already provided the info you seek, but my query is this: If it would be a "scandal" for a Senator to call a US Attorney at home in order to pressure him about an indictment, wouldn't it also be a "scandal" if the US Attorney who had been pressured was fired because he refused to give in to that pressure?
Just wondering.
Earle's prosecutions and investigations included Republican Kay Bailey Hutchinson (case was dropped after evidence was quashed), Tom DeLay, David Bradley and Bob Offutt (State Board of Education), and Texas State Rep. Mike Martin (pled guilty to perjury). He also prosecuted and/or investigated the following Democrats (all Texas unless noted):
Supreme Court Justice Don Yarborough (5 years for forgery and lying to a grand jury)
Treasurer Warren Harding (no contest to official misconduct)
AG Jim Mattox (acquitted)
House Speaker Gib Lewis ($2000 fine for failing to disclose deal)
State Rep. Betty Denton (six months probation, $2000)
State Rep. Lane Denton (60 days work release, 6 years probation, $6000)
BOE Member Joe Bernel (indicted on misdeameanor charges by another attorney along with the GOP members)
Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle - (yess, that Ronnie Earle. Convicted and paid $212 fine.
See, guys - THIS is what it looks like when you go after prosecution GENERALLY. THAT's not a crime, nor is it prosecutorial misconduct.
Nifong should absolutely be tarred and feathered for what he did. That's a no-brainer.
As for Ronnie Earle, I'm afraid there's no evidence to suggest the DeLay prosecution was motivated by a desire to win re-election. You need a little something more than the defendant's complaints of a partisan witch-hunt, I'm afraid, since that seems to be quite routine in prosecutions of politicians. Indeed, DeLay's supporters seem to have been quite mistaken in their guarantees that the case would be quickly thrown out of court.
I don't doubt that officers of the court might find these events "disturbing," but frankly find it difficult to believe that these same officers of the court are unaware these events occur accross both parties and particularly for those in the party in power at any given time.
I would personally approve of a law that would prevent prosecutors from running for higher office. This would hinder cases being brought for purposes of aggrandizing the prosecutor.
You are quoting a WSJ editorial, not a straight news story. The WSJ editorial page often gets their facts wrong and even when they get them right they're highly tendentious in the way they present those facts. The article you cite is a combination of both, and it appears that they were successful in misleading you. Maybe you should find a better news source?
To quote Stuart M. Gerson, Assistant Attorney General under Bush Sr and Acting Attorney General at the start of the Clinton Term (he served on the transition teams of Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, and Bush Jr, so he's quite informed about what happens in a transition).
Boy, am I getting tired of swatting down this ridiculous talking point.
What is Earle running for? Attorney General? Going after powerful Republicans may get you re-elected in Austin, I assume, but I can't imagine it would be a ticket to success in a statewide race.
The problem for Bush is that his initial team was no group of All-Stars...and the 3rd class clowns now bubbling out of the dregs of the party are not even marginally capable political hacks. (A great example is that George Deutsch guy who tried to squelch NASA's climate change research--didn't even have his Texas A&M degree completed.)
It is really tough for a Republican president to ensure that the bureaucracy he is the titular head of follows his instructions. This is because he (or she) is faced with tens of thousands of civil servants, each with some ability to delay or diminish the decisions of the President AND who are, to a very large degree, voters of the Democratic party.
So, while a Democratic president has to merely overcome standard bureaucratic inertia and iron triangle interest group relations between the agency, the Congress, and their external supporters, a Republican president must also face an interminable number of bureaucratic gnats each trying to stick a knife in him. (This is not just theoretical--I have seen this, personally, in the behavior of the Office of the Inspector General at Ed towards Presidential initiatives in that department.)
www.thoughttheater.com
It's important to get to the bottom of this because a system in which prosecutors are fired for going after the Administration's political friends and/or for refusing to go after the Administration's political enemies is a perversion of both justice and democracy. The reputation of the Justice Department and U.S. Attorney's offices across the nation is at stake.
Another useful reference on bureaucratic behavior is James Q. Wilson's book on the Bureaucracy. IIRC, Senator Dominici was the Ranking Republican on Senate Ways and Means--if I were a bureaucrat, and that individual called me and said jump, I would have asked how high. Should Sen Dominici have asked for Mr. Yglesias to be gotten rid of, I would not be surprised why DOJ would have done it. Was the removal "right?" of course not; but it is certainly both understandable and predictable.
More significantly, though, the argument about the beginning of the term replacements is irrelevant. Everyone agrees that the President has every right to hire and fire the US Attorneys. Much the same is true of employers generally -- under at-will employment, they can be fired for any reason or no reason. What can NOT happen, though, is a firing for prohibited reasons such as race or religion. Same with Bush -- he could have fired these Attorneys for pretty much any reason. What he could NOT do is fire them in order to corrupt the judicial process.
"Copyright 1980 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
November 28, 1980, Friday, Late City Final Edition
SECTION: Section B; Page 11, Column 1; National Desk
LENGTH: 956 words
HEADLINE: DECISION BY REAGAN IS AWAITED ON U.S. ATTORNEYS WHO ARE DEMOCRATS
BYLINE: Special to the New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, Nov. 27
Many Federal prosecutors, former prosecutors and Justice Department officials say they hope that Ronald Reagan will depart from custom by allowing incumbent United States Attorneys to complete their terms.
Of all the Government officials subject to replacement by the new President, few are in so delicate or ambiguous a position as these 94 Presidentially appointed prosecutors, who try cases involving Federal laws throughout the country. They are supposed to be strictly nonpolitical in their work, though in many cases they were appointed as a result of political patronage.
They have four-year terms, but serve at the pleasure of the President. The law says that ‘’each United States Attorney is subject to removal by the President.'’ It does not say that removal may be ‘’only for good cause,'’ as some statutes provide.
Those who hope that Mr. Reagan will let the incumbents finish their terms said that such a move would enhance the lawyers’ status as professionals. He might also avoid the fights that caused embarrassment to President Carter when he removed several Republican prosecutors against their will, most notably David W. Marston, in Philadelphia.
Aides to Mr. Reagan said last week that they had not set a policy, but would be inclined to review separately the qualifications of each United States Attorney.
Merit Over Partisanship
In some large metropolitan districts, merit has begun to overtake partisan politics as a major factor in the selection and retention of United States Attorneys. Senators in about eight states, including New York, have set up merit selection commissions to screen candidates.
The terms of 52 of the 94 prosecutors expire in 1981. Another 15 terms will be up in 1982. In addition, Federal District Courts have appointed United States Attorneys to fill vacancies in 12 districts. The President could appoint new people to those positions at any time. All nominees would be subject to Senate confirmation.
The decision to retain incumbent United States Attorneys depends at least as much on senators, because Senators of the President’s party have usually had the dominant voice in choosing Federal prosecutors."
Vistor: kinda reminds me of the Dubai ports controversy. The average American (myself included) is not in a position to immediately make an informed analysis of the pros and cons of such a deal. I mean, selling to a Dubai company sounds bad, but let's get the facts. But no, how did Bush react? He whined like a petulant baby about how the deal is going to go through b/c he says so. He did this before he even knew the details himself. It wasn't the news of the transaction that made me so skeptical, it was his continous defensive posture about the whole issue that raises eyebrows. I mean, for someone who doesn't mention the loss of an American city in his SOTU address or Osama Bin Laden, why would he have so much passion over this one "little" transaction?
Democrats, whose newfound regard for the crimes of perjury and obstruction is absolutely precious, have worked themselves into high dudgeon about the possibility that there may have been politics involved in the hiring and firing of political appointees. (The suggestion in this thread that the discretionary firing of a prosecutor by his boss could amount to obstruction of justice is particularly hilarious.)
Meanwhile, Republicans who scorched the earth with Congressional subpoenas during the Clinton administration are now making broad claims of executive privilege.
Like I said: sad and ridiculous. I think we went past history repeating itself as tragedy, and straight through to farce.
If you act guilty, we will assume you are guilty. You'd think every PR person would have this tattooed on the back of their eyelids by now.
I fear that process simply can't be done coherently without producing precisely those things you cite as suggestion guilt; and were any administration to say, give me three days to do this, it would be assumed that time was done to concoct a story. I think any administration is really in a no-win PR position.
Yup. Bush's problem isn't that the War in Iraq is going badly, it's that he just hasn't been able to get Fox News to convey that it is.
Not to be all nitpicky, but Marx said the first time was tragedy, the second time was farce.
There's a post in the other thread which explains this in more detail, but generally yes. Enforcement in most cases goes to the US Attorney for DC.
Now that the Democracts in Congress have a far lower approval rating the lame duck Bush, there's little incentive for him to change what he's been doing lately, as it's obviously been working for him.
Um...It's not just Democrats. Listen to Bob Barr, Attorney General under Reagan:
There you have it. The Bush administration is willing to sacrifice the reputation of the DOJ in order to win a pissing match with congress. Talk about undermining respect for the rule of law - if I was one of the 85 remaining USA's I'd be livid at the damage to my reputation.
Oops. Make that one of the US Attorneys under Reagan. Fumble fingers.
that just goes to prove how non-partisan Reagan was - he hired someone with obvious Democratic leanings as AG
But good God--Is it 2009 yet?
A memo to My Fellow Americans: Let's not do this MBA-President-thing again. In fact, let's close down the "management" schools.
Barr is entitled to his spin. I'm entitled to think he's an opportunist and a fool.
- Back to the Future, Clinton-Style
Christopher Ruddy
It's illegal immigration, Iraq, the stock market, property prices and taxes, the cost of that MRI they had to have.
The Congress plays politics. The administration plays politics. It's all just irrelevant noise to the voters who have to deal with bread and butter issues.
I'm not Orin or even a lawyer, but my understanding is that the only precedents for executive privilege relate to national security issues. So, were Bush to base his challenge to the subpoenas on executive privilege he'd be breaking new legal ground here. (i.e. he'd need to establish a new precedent).
I'll cheerfully accept a correction from somebody more knowlegable.
Your comment (I am assuming referring to Bob Barr) is a real head-scratcher. Bob Barr was a U.S. Attorney during the Reagan Administration and then spent 8 years in Congress as the most conservative member of the Georgia delegation.
However, he may have an ax to grind against the Bush Administration. In 2004, the politicos in the Bush White House supported Johnny Isakson over Barr for the open U.S. Senate seat. Paybacks can be hell.
sorry to dissilusion you but the Congresses `ratings have plummeted and they are rated below the President. With the latest BS I would suggest they will be in the negative.
It also ain't any other topic* covered by the Volokh Conspiracy. But I fail to see the utility in pointing that out in every thread.
* Well, maybe the 30 minute seder in certain neighborhoods. (c:
sarcasm
I'm not sure you appreciate the impact that "corruption" had on the 2006 elections - and that was before Libby was convicted.
It was Iraq.
I think Bush has made quite a few political calculations in the last six years, but the whole affair is going to leave the Democrats worse for wear. Americans are starting to remember why we voted them out of office in 1994.
People who keep saying this are simply ignoring the evidence. Here is a direct quote from one of the fired USA's:
That's called OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, people.
Not to mention the fact that Gonzales and others blatantly lied to Congress.
"Brett: Democrats, whose newfound regard for the crimes of perjury and obstruction is absolutely precious, have worked themselves into high dudgeon about the possibility that there may have been politics involved in the hiring and firing of political appointees."
You, like many others, are simply not getting what this controversy is about, or are just dishonestly trying to pretend that the issue is about hires and fires rather than the conduct behind the hires and fires and the way the Republican party appears to have tried to use the justice system to generate ink and, perhaps more severely, bury and negate investigations of Republicans for misconduct. US attorney's are indeed political appointees, but that doesn't mean that they aren't bound by ethics or don't have certain duties.
We so far have pretty good evidence that many of the people who were fired we fired because they didn't do something that was flatly unethical: i.e. mount investigations they couldn't otherwise justify for the purpose of helping their party generate ink and win elections. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. There WERE many investigations of Democrats before the midterms that generated headlines but never actually developed into anything and seem to have simply been forgotten about now that the elections are over. Suddenly, countless numbers of these cases now look suspect. You don't see how that could be a serious problem? And that's not even getting into what appears to be evidence of trying to quash existing or planned investigations of Republicans.
Oh, he's just a crazed DemocRAT moonbat with BDS like that Bob Barr guy. Fools and opportunists. It's all spin. Nothing to see here. </sarcasm>
Case in point: this talking point about the issue being just over whether or not Bush can hire or fire these people. Has ANYONE ever claimed that he couldn't do so? Why is this the only question his defenders seem willing to answer, especially given that it is a question no one asked? How can people be either this grossly misinformed os this boldly dishonest?
Rasmussen:
There's more:
You can pretend, if you like, that the actions of one committee are what's holding up the solution to global warming and the cure for cancer, but the facts won't back you up.
Given that William Jefferson was re-elected, I don't think that corruption was really much of an issue.
Again, anecdotal evidence from a single district hardly trumps actual evidence in the form of exit polls and election results. You don't see me making the absurd argument that because Joe Lieberman got re-elected, the public didn't care much about Iraq.
Americans are starting to remember why we voted them out of office in 1994.
Wishful thinking in the extreme. Wow, the Republicans took over in 1994 because the public didn't like investigations? The Republican majority never would have lasted past the first investigation of Clinton's Christmas card list if that were the case. No, the Republicans took over because the public was quite rightly concerned about corruption and wrongdoing on the part of Democrats, and there's no reason to think they care any less now that the shoe is on the other foot.
I just wonder where all these people who think it's a crime to waste the valuable time of the Executive Branch were in the 1990s.
Given what we've now learned about the AUSAs, whose to believe that William Jefferson was guilty? (note: I personally doubt Jefferson is innocent, although my concerns about Bob Casey and Bob Menendez's ethical issues have been greatly reduced by the knowledge of how the AUSA's office is run under the Bush administration).
Got me there, I certainly keep thousands of dollars of cash I can't account for in the freezer. And that footage of him taking bribes? Doesn't prove a thing...
I think Bush is in a better position than many want to admit: A corrupt Congress wants to attack the White house on the basis that US attorneys were fired for not investigating Democrats? There's a pretty effective counter to that: Bring indictments against a few Democratic members of Congress. And suddenly the complaints look an awful lot like guilty people who don't want the police looking into their affairs.
Which I suspect is pretty close to the truth.
To answer a couple of questions:
"I'm sure that as a citizen and a taxpayer, you were equally outraged when Congress spent all kinds of your money investigating things like Bill Clinton's Christmas card list."
The relevance of this escapes me, but yes, I was. I'm outraged by most Congressional investigations, as they usually seem to more about politics than discovering facts or actually accomplishing something useful.
"However, the present scandal has quite a bit more substance to it."
I'm not convinced of that. I stand by my opinon that in the past, irrespective of which party it was, this would just be part of typical political maneuvering. I don't think it is right or fair that these folks were fired, but I see no threat to freedom from it. As someone else said, I'm shocked!! that political appointees were fired for political reasons.
"...If it would be a "scandal" for a Senator to call a US Attorney at home in order to pressure him about an indictment, wouldn't it also be a "scandal" if the US Attorney who had been pressured was fired because he refused to give in to that pressure? "
I consider the Senator's actions more objectionable, because he started this series of events, and most likely insisted that this person be replaced. I believe that the Executive should have resisted this, first because it is not right or fair to the US Attorney, and second because it was politically stupid, but perhaps they thought they needed the Senator's good will. That is politics. In this case, probably a political mistake.
But to start treating this as some huge scandal, requiring Congressional investigation with supoenas and oaths and looking for criminal activity - just strikes me as grandstanding at best, and yes, a show trial and witch hunt at worst.
The thought of Senators and Representatives grilling people and making impassioned speeches about how horrible and evil the other side is and what a threat to the republic - it disgusts me. Pot, kettle, black.
The one thing that I am sure is truly bi-partisan is corruption. Followed closely by dirty political infighting.
How can you be convinced of that? You just admitted not knowing even the basic facts surrounding the scandal.
(Even if it did say "good cause", who's to say what a good cause is? "For not enforcing the laws" is pretty good. Of course, you can certainly argue that point. But to do that, you'd have to get past the ridiculous sob stories about how "my boss called me and said I wasn't doing my job, and I got really scared."
(About which: Geez, grow up. You're a political appointee. What did you think you were signing up for? If you work "at someone's pleasure" -- which is, incidentally, what 99% of us wage-slaves are doing -- and somebody who outranks you tells you to do something that could reasonably be construed as your job -- and doing that construed something isn't actually illegal -- then you suck it up and do it. These human-interest "agony accounts" read like those PR-firmed statements that parties in civil suits always put in their press releases. Speaking as a total cynic, the dismal science of public relations has lowered my "sob-story" tolerance to near zero. Exceptions are allowed for lynchings or actual physical abuse. Everything else is too easily exaggerated.)
I'm glad that 'uh clem' is around to "slap down" any of our lame "talking points". Of course, he left out the fact that one of the reasons that the GOP bitched so much about the "Reno 93" was that a number of them were considering bringing an indictment against Dan Rostenkowski at the time. (Source: .) However, that one might actually have been a coincidence, given the timing.
But what about when Jimmy Carter canned Philadelphia U.S. Attorney David Marston for investigating PA congressman Joshua Eilberg? That was in the middle of a term -- it took place in 1978. And Carter fired him at the recommendation of ... Joshua Eilberg himself. (Who subsequently got charged by the Ethics Committee, lost his reelection, and pled out to a five-year sentence. Something about a kickback for a federal grant to a hospital.) Way to go, Jimmy! That was 1xxx times more outrageous than what Dubya did. (Here, "xxx" stands for "a certain number of zeroes, depending on your party affiliation.") Source: .
I hope that Marston thing doesn't count as a "talking point." That could bring the "slap down" from uh clem, you know. Well, I can always write a sob story about it ... and post it under the aforementioned "physical abuse" exception.
No, plunge. I "get", perfectly, that this is what you would like this controversy to be about: you're desperately trying to spin Gonzales' incompetent explanations for the firings, plus the absence of evidence of good cause for the firings, plus this wishful thinking...
...into a scandal allowing intellectual and ethical midgets Henry Waxman and Pat Leahy to grandstand, with the ultimate goal of enabling the nutroots to collect a scalp or two, and possibly stick some additional mud to a president you despise. Of course, you don't actually possess "good evidence" of any wrongdoing or impropriety; you have the self-interested statements of the fired prosecutors themselves, plus email documentation that your fellow partisans have busily been romancing into innuendo, but which -- as Patterico has amply demonstrated on his blog -- isn't nearly as conclusive or damning as you'd have the world think.
Ultimately, it all boils down to what I said above: lefty partisans feigning to be shocked, shocked, that politics -- inclusive of decisions as to how to prioritize investigatory effort and allocate prosecutorial resources -- may have been a factor in the hiring and firing of political appointees. No amount of partisan spin, or hilariously declaring your critics ignorant or dishonest, alters that basic fact.
you're making the same mistake everyone else is making. Nobody is alleging that the firing of the US Attornies was a crime in and of itself. It was possibly the tool to commit or encourage another crime (such as obstruction of justice or malicious prosecution) - and that's the statute you'd want to focus on in discussing the criminal issue.
Now, I'm thinking that when you call people "intellectual and ethical midgets" or make comparable claims you are just revealing your closed minded partisanship. Which is certainly your right. But why would you expect anyone to be persuaded by the content your post after you demonstrate this fact?
Now, I'm thinking that when you call people "intellectual and ethical midgets" or make comparable claims you are just revealing your closed minded partisanship. Which is certainly your right. But why would you expect anyone to be persuaded by the content your post after you demonstrate this fact?
Now, I'm thinking that when you call people "intellectual and ethical midgets" or make comparable claims you are just revealing your closed minded partisanship. Which is certainly your right. But why would you expect anyone to be persuaded by the content your post after you demonstrate this fact?
Ok. So how do you spin Gonzales' incompetent explanations for the firings, and the absence of evidence of good cause for the firings?
Extra points for explaining how Bush can be "out of the loop" and "didn't sign off" on the firings, yet retain the role as sole decision maker on who stays and who goes.
When I get a narrative that's at least internally consistent then I can start examaining it to see if it comports with observable facts. As long as I'm staring at at a collection of excuses that contradict each other I'll continue to call BS.
If you can't see at least the possible larger issue here, you are buried to the neck in the bullcrap of partisanship.
Ok. Fine. If that's the reason then let him go on national television and say so. "Because I say so" is never a good reason, and no thinking person should accept it as an excuse.
I'm still waiting for a valid reason why they were fired that passes the laugh test. As it is, Bush and Gonzles are trying to simultaneously hide behind the "I was out of the loop" defense and claim the "Because I said so" excuse. Neither are exculpatory, and they're logically mutuallly exclusive.
So, which is it? It can't be both.
I wouldn’t read too much into this statement. The phrase “somewhat or very closely” is pretty vague. Anyone who has just heard of the Gonzales matter will likely answer “yes” to this question. I really doubt this issue fevers and lathers the country (borrowing a phrase from H. L. Mencken). It’s inside the Beltway stuff for political junkies. I suspect a lot of people are actually pissed off that Congress is wasting time on this. There were pissed off when the Republicans did much the same thing to Clinton. We are ripe for a third party. The Stupid Party has become evil (as well as stupid) and the Evil Party has become stupid (as well as evil). Scotty beam me up, this place sucks.
OTOH, given that bad memory while testifying in the investigation of a non-crime is now punishable with prison (Scooter Libby), but apparently only for Republican officials (how much time did Bill Clinton serve, for what was unquestionably perjury?), Bush may simply think that he has to protect his people by seeing that they never go under oath.
Clinton's appointees testfied dozens of times under oath on the Hill. Bush will lose this fight. By dragging it out he's inviting comparisons to Nixon. That's not what any president wants to do but it may be bad enough that it's what he has to do.
Just a few examples:
"These are political appointments" of course they are political appointment, but the prosecution of the duties of the USAs must be scrupulously non-political, if the rule of law has any meaning. Don't they teach basic civic anymore? And how can a blog that is moderated by law professors be populated by commenters who show such an ignorance (or is it disdain) for both the rule of law and the actions of officers of the court?
"Bad memory is now a crime" This is really a good one. Mr. Libby had the chance to testify that this was simply a case of failed memory and the jury could have weighed his testimony and credibility. However, please enlighten me as to how you can prove faulty memory without such testimony? And please spare us all of the specious argument that "expert testimony" could prove this. That's like saying I can prove a person's intent by providing third party testimony that he is a wonderful person (which really only proves that a person believes that the defendant is a good person).
Finally, whether a crime was committed or not is irrelevant to the controversy. The Congress has clearly defined and well-established precedents for oversight. In the midst of breathtaking inconsistencies offered by both the AG and the Administration, only a fool would simply say, "OK, no harm no foul; who needs an explanation anyway?"
"Corrupt Congress" This is truly a truly bankrupt statement. The investigations of the Democratic lawmakers were made in respect of matters occurring prior to the Nov 06 elections. The Republicans held the majority at the time and the Democrats had no power to forward any particular agenda. The fact that there is such a huge discrepancy between Republican investigations and Democratic investigations is certainly prima facie cause for suspicion. But more importantly, when making sweeping accusations regarding our lawmakers, at least provide some basis. There simply has not been enough time since the elections for such corruption to have festered, at least if one uses common sense. But being "liberal" I certainly would be open to examining any evidence of such "corruption".
Any mention of "Ronnie Earle" is pure and simply apples and oranges. Ronnie Earle is not a USA nor is Mr. Delay, to my knowledge under investigation or indictment by any federal authorities.
This is truly a pathetic display of "politics" by those who at least on the surface are concerned about the "law". There is a difference. It's too bad that our law schools are not so concerned with inculcating the importance of that difference.
First, as those who have followed Stefan Sharkansky's work at Sound Politics know, there was good reason to investigate the 2004 election here in Washington state. Stefan has, so far, found more than 500 votes counted by King County, which should not have been counted. McKay refused to investigate. (Full disclosure: I am one of the contributors to the site.)
Second, the 7-1 (or 10-1, or whatever the ratio was in that silly study that Krugman cited) of Democratic corruption cases to Republican corruption cases sounds about right, if prosecutors are choosing cases purely on their legal merits. Democrats really are that much more likely to be involved in corruption than Republicans -- and the ratio is even higher in vote fraud cases. (If you want examples for the last point, see John Fund's "Stealing Elections". Or just do regular searches, as I do, for vote fraud news stories. You'll find that nearly all of them involve Democrats, often, by the way, in Democratic primaries.)
Or take a look at one of our most famous corruption cases, Abscam. Make a count of the public officials who were convicted and their parties. I'll bet you come pretty close to 7-1 Democrats to Republicans. And that investigation was started under, as I recall, Jimmy Carter, who is not now and never has been a Republican.
This is not to say that all Democratic officials, or even most Democratic officials, are corrupt. But anyone familiar with our political parties will know that, if you are looking for corrupt officials, you will find more on the left side of the aisle. And I knew that even when I was a Democrat, years ago.