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Alberto Gonzales is Gone!
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It wasn't just Leahy. Both Rove and Gonzales infuriated congressional GOPers who felt that their presence was hindering any hope for a GOP win in November. The Republicans, to save face, generally didn't air their opinions and it was very likely part of the deal after Bush had the White House sit-down with the congressional GOP leaders. He would still get tacit support for his war in exchange for lopping off a few heads. It's all about November 2008 now.
Pelosi may have promised no impeachments but she's not in control of the House. Getting rid of Gonzales would have been easy and the Dems had enough votes on their own to do the job. Gonzales pretty much thumbed his nose at congress; a stupid mistake. His own party or not, congress tends to become infuriated when its authority isn't respected. Congressional GOPers couldn't defend Gonzales if the House Dems threatened impeachment and as only a simple majority vote would be needed to remove him, the votes would be far easier to get. The GOP members couldn't just continue to defend him when he flouted congressional authority so brazenly. No, Gonzales was an embarrassment.
Gonzalez, Rove, Rumsfeld, Snow/McLellan/Fleischer, Powell, Brownie, Tenet.. is this unusual for a president's second term or is it just that in previous administrations the bit players didn't get as much air time? I can barely recall anyone in the Clinton cabinet, if one of them resigned I probably wouldn't have noticed. Every time a Bush team member does it's big news, and the Dems treat it as some kind of victory... as if Bush won't just replace whoever resigns with another inept party loyalist.
Well, I'm guessing that the reason anyone is taking notice of these is because they've each been embroiled in some scandal in recent memory. But you are correct that the dems shouldn't rejoice, until they see who the replacement is.
HazelGod
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So, another domino in the lineup has toppled. The AG is dead...long live the AG, right?
I wish I could rejoice in this event, but a dozen cliches are swirling around in my head at various volumes right now...the loudest seeming to be too little, too late.
I wish I could feel an elated sense of vindication, but there's only the hollow ring of observing inevitability proceed before me, like watching rivulets flow downhill.
As much as political corruption is presumed in this nation, any evidence I ever needed that this administration was truly festering came when Colin Powell announced that he would not be reprising his role of Bush Mouthpiece...er...Sec'y of State for a second term. That numerous other cabinet-level appointees followed suit was simply something of an exclamation mark.
Anyhow, unless the Solicitor General has the biggest nutsack on the planet, my opinion is that this move simply makes official the effective impotence we've witnessed from the DoJ since W took office. I'd point out that it means our justice system is now absent the person who should be its greatest advocate, but how would that be any different than the past six years?
I wish I could rejoice in this event, but a dozen cliches are swirling around in my head at various volumes right now...the loudest seeming to be too little, too late.
I wish I could feel an elated sense of vindication, but there's only the hollow ring of observing inevitability proceed before me, like watching rivulets flow downhill.
As much as political corruption is presumed in this nation, any evidence I ever needed that this administration was truly festering came when Colin Powell announced that he would not be reprising his role of Bush Mouthpiece...er...Sec'y of State for a second term. That numerous other cabinet-level appointees followed suit was simply something of an exclamation mark.
Anyhow, unless the Solicitor General has the biggest nutsack on the planet, my opinion is that this move simply makes official the effective impotence we've witnessed from the DoJ since W took office. I'd point out that it means our justice system is now absent the person who should be its greatest advocate, but how would that be any different than the past six years?
First of all, I think we treat it not so much a "victory", but as shining a light on cockroaches -- we know it doesn't kill the roaches, and we know there'll be more, but at least we're making the case that the public shouldn't be eating what these people feed you anymore.
As for resignations during Clinton's administration, there were 13. (Federico Pena resigned as Secretary of Transportation to accept the post of Secretary of Energy; I'm not counting this "lateral move" among the 13.) So far -- with still a year left in Bush's term -- there have been 16. So numerically, there seems to be little significant difference.
However, Clinton had an opposite-party Congress for six of his eight years in office that hounded him on everything from Whitewater to blue dresses. Bush has had an opposite-party Congress for just over seven months, which is finally exercising long-overdue oversight that the Republican leadership neglected to do.
As a result, the circumstances leading to the resignations in Clinton's cabinet tended not to drag out and escalate. Except for the Henry Cisneros resignation, most of his other resignations were reasonably uncontroversial and faded from the nightly news cycles in a short time. Conversely, Bush is experiencing many high-profile resignations in a short time that should have occurred much earlier, but were allowed to fester and spiral out of control.
faceking
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Principessa
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faceking
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Hmmm, Cisneros, Pena, William Perry, and whom can forget Espy... those are 4 Clinton cabinet appointees under a cloud of scandal, I'm sure I'm forgetting a few more.
Regardless...
Will be good to see a Dem in there, with the way politics is going... so much scrutiny and monday morning quarterbacking... hopefully the populus will see all this for what it is, and call a spade a spade.
Can someone substantiate Janet Reno firing 93 attorneys ????!!! Hypocrisy in it's finest hour.
In case ppl haven't been keeping score...
A Democrat Party-led Congress has an approval rating lower than Bush's for the 7 months of control... what does that tell you....
...and you think Alberto Gonzalez is the problem. Lawdy.
and while we're at it... where's the accolades to Bush on diversity in his cabinet.... (absences and crickets from the leftist mainstream media) on names like Powell, Rice, Gonzalez, Chao, Martinez, Jackson, etc... had they all been Hillary appointees it would be considered landmark... someone recount for me the number of African-Americans Clinton appointed....
Espy? Maybe you didn't follow the verdict. The jury not only acquitted the guy, but as CNN puts it, "repudiated" the prosecutor's botched and ego-driven investigation.
Cisneros is fair game -- I've already conceded that bad apple.
As for Pena and Perry, there's a difference between a "scandal" and simply underperforming. If you can identify what was "scandalous" about their careers in office, I'm willing to listen.
Are you serious? Every administration "fires 93 attorneys" at the beginning of their term of office. From the United States Attorneys' Manual (I've added the bold-face):
When a new president takes over, that new president nominates 93 United States Attorneys (that's how many there are), but retains the services of the old ones temporarily until the nominees have been confirmed. Janet Reno "fired" each of the outgoing attorneys, whose terms had ended, and whose successors had been confirmed. John Ashcroft also "fired" 93 attorneys in the same manner.
It's completely misleading and unfair to compare what Albert Gonzales did to the spelled-out custom that all new administrations follow. Your accusation of "hypocrisy" is uncalled-for.
Rhetoric? Oh please. Do you actually know anything about what his job is supposed to be, and what he has actually done while in the AG position?
I believe that's exactly what's happening. Hopefully, you will eventually see it for what it is, instead of what Coulter, Hannity, and Limbaugh tell you it is.
More on that in a moment, I'll combine that with mindseye's comments...
Is that a fact, or your considered opinion, given to you by the above-mentioned pundits?
Accurate, but incomplete. The controversy was not replacing all 93 US Attorneys. The controversy was (1) firing a few more mid-term, after they had been seated; (2) claiming that the mid-term firings were for "poor job performance," when the evidence seems to indicate it was not job performance, but political motivation; (3) lying to the Judiciary Committe during hearings into the firings.
The fact is, some of the US attorneys weren't prosecuting some high-profile cases the way the White House wanted them to. Stacking the courts and eliminating the separation of powers is not ethical government. The executive deserves every invecive thrown their way. Party loyalty trumps judicial ethics? I don't think so, and it's about time some in the executive branch were held accountable.