Political Prisoner Released

Remember this:

• Karl Rove had several of his political operatives placed in judicial positions - US Attorneys, Judges etc.
• They prosecuted Democrats on drummed up charges - made them political prisoners.
• One of the most obvious victims was Don Siegelman.

But we have the beginning of a happy ending:
Siegelman to be released from prison

MONTGOMERY -- A federal appellate court today ordered former Gov. Don Siegelman released from prison while he appeals his 2006 conviction, but denied co-defendant Richard Scrushy's request to be released.

[.....]

The judges wrote that Siegelman met both requirements for an appeal bond: He is not a flight risk and his appeal raises a substantial question of law or fact likely to result in reversal or an order for a new trial.

"After thorough review of this complex and protracted record, we conclude Siegelman has satisfied the criteria set out in the statute, and has specifically met his burden of showing that his appeal raises substantial questions of law or fact," the judges wrote.

For a truly happy ending Siegelman's conviction must be overturned and those who put him in jail tried and convicted.

Hapless Kooks VS The Hapless DOJ

Hapless Kooks - that's what your government is trying to protect you from and they can't even do that. Paul Kiel reports:

The Miami "Seas of David" terror bust was such an important blow in the War on Terror that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales himself gave a press conference in July of 2006. Federal agents had stopped a plot to blow up the Sears Tower, he said. The group had planned to "accomplish attacks against America," the FBI's deputy director said at Gonzales side. "We pre-empted their plot."

But, as we wrote at the time, "the more we learn, the less this crew looks like they could have toppled a tree house, let alone the Sears Tower." The clique, adherents of a sect "that mixes Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Freemasonry, Gnosticism and Taoism," met in a windowless warehouse they called the "Temple." The leader of the group, Narseal Batiste, was described as a "'Moses-like figure' who would roam the streets in a cape or bathrobe, toting a crooked wooden cane and looking for young men to join his group." And when the group met in their Temple, the men "took turns standing guard outside the door, dressed up in makeshift military uniforms and combat boots. Sometimes they covered their faces with ski masks." Nobody ever charged them with being subtle.

So they went to trial and what happened?
Chicago bomb defendant is cleared

A jury in Miami has cleared one man of trying to blow up America's tallest building, the Sears Tower in Chicago, as part of a holy war.
The jury was unable to reach a verdict on six other defendants, and the judge declared a mistrial. Prosecutors say they plan to try them again next year.

The jury spent more than week considering their verdicts.

And how hapless were they?

The prosecution said they had hoped to forge an alliance with al-Qaeda to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago and FBI offices in Miami and elsewhere.

But they succeeded only in contacting a paid FBI informant, rather than al-Qaeda itself.

And the defence argued that that they were in fact hapless figures who were either entrapped by the FBI or went along with the plot in order to con the FBI informant out of $50,000 (£25,000).

It said they wanted money to transform the warehouse in Liberty City where they met into a community gathering place.

I don't even want to think about how much money was spent to set these fools up and then bring them to trial all for the sake of some propaganda.

Is Gonzo really gone?

Fired U.S. attorney John McKay thinks so!
Gonzales could be prosecuted, McKay says

The U.S. Inspector General may recommend criminal prosecution of departed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at the conclusion of an investigation, possibly as early as next month, the fired former U.S. attorney for Western Washington told a Spokane audience Friday.

His refusal to open a federal criminal investigation into voter fraud allegations in Gov. Chris Gregoire’s razor-thin victory over Republican challenger Dino Rossi in 2004 may be the reason he was fired, John McKay told the Federal Bar Association.

Appointed by President Bush in October 2001 to the top law enforcement job in western Washington, McKay said he believes he and seven other U.S. attorneys were fired last December by Gonzales for political reasons, perhaps with former White House chief of staff Karl Rove pulling strings.

Career prosecutors in his office and FBI agents agreed there was no reason to go forward with a federal investigation of the Gregoire-Rossi election, and issues associated with it were more properly addressed by state officials, McKay said.

McKay says he spent eight hours testifying on his firing at the Office of Inspector General, who will forward their final report to Congress.

“My best guess is it will be released sometime next month,’’ and likely will include recommendations for criminal prosecutions of Gonzales and maybe others, McKay said.

Gonzales “lied about” reasons for the firings when questioned under oath in July by the Senate Judiciary Committee and now has hired a lawyer and is refusing to answer questions from the Inspector General, McKay said.

The White House said McKay was fired for poor performance ratings of his office, but the ex-U.S. attorney said he and his office got exemplary reviews just three months before he was fired.

“The chief law enforcement officer for the United States should not lie under oath,’’ McKay told the bar association.

Gonzo shuts up and lawyers up!

It was reported last week that Gonzales has now retained a high-profile defense lawyer, and apparently is refusing to answer questions from the Inspector General, which could signify the investigation is nearly complete, McKay said.

It looks like Rove may be in for some tough times himself.

This will be an "I told you so" moment for we members of the PBRC (Indie 500) but I'm sure we all wish we didn't have to say it.

Mukasey

Talking The Talk!
Mukasey Strives for Balance in Confirmation Testimony

Attorney general nominee Michael B. Mukasey pledged this morning to adhere to the law and protect the civil liberties of Americans if he is confirmed as the head of the Justice Department, subtly signaling a fresh start after the tumultuous tenure of Alberto R. Gonzales.

[....]

"Protecting civil liberties, and people's confidence that those liberties are protected, is part of protecting national security, just as is the gathering of intelligence to defend us from those who believe it is their duty to make war on us," Mukasey said in prepared remarks. "We have to succeed at both."

Mukasey also sharply criticized a Justice Department legal opinion issued early in the Bush administration, and since rescinded, that narrowly defined the acts that constitute torture and laid the legal groundwork for the use of harsh interrogation techniques on U.S. detainees.

Calling the memo "a mistake" and "unnecessary," Mukasey said that torture violates U.S. laws and pointed to the role of American troops in liberating Nazi concentration camps following World War II. "We didn't do that so we could then duplicate it ourselves," he said.

But Will He Walk The Walk?
We have a long history of Bush appointees saying what they think congress wants them to say and then doing the opposite. Think Alberto Gonzales, John Roberts and Antonin Scalia. Have we been had again? Time will tell.

Update
Spencer Ackerman has more on the TALK

That was, um, unexpected. Not only did Michael Mukasey repudiate the so-called 2002 "torture memo" signed by Office of Legal Counsel chief Jay Bybee -- which appears to have survived in spirit, if not in letter -- but he compared U.S. torture to the Holocaust.

Most significantly, Mukasey said that he is unaware of any inherent commander-in-chief authority to override legal restrictions on torture -- a huge repudiation of Dick Cheney, David Addington and John Yoo's perspective on broad constitutional powers possessed by the president in wartime -- or to immunize practitioners of torture from prosecution. That answer is sure to create anxiety inside the CIA, where many interrogators fear that they will be brought up on charges for carrying out interrogation methods earlier approved by the administration.

The Bybee memo is "worse than a sin, it's a mistake," Mukasey said. He referenced the photographs taken by U.S. troops who liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1945 to document the "barbarism" the U.S. opposed. "They didn't do that so we could duplicate what we oppose." Beyond legal restrictions barring torture clearly, torture is "antithetical to what this country stands for."

And still more of the right talk

Michael Mukasey, responding to questioning from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), endorsed the memoir -- and, implicitly, the legal perspective and bureaucratic predicament -- of Jack Goldsmith, the former Office of Legal Counsel chief, who fought Addington and Alberto Gonzales on interrogations, detentions and surveillance policy. "I thought it was superb. I couldn't put it down. In a way, I was sorry when it was finished," Mukasey said.

Among the largest legal disagreements between Goldsmith and Addington centered around presidential authority. Addington argued that power is a zero-sum game, where congressional power necessarily encroaches on executive authority; Goldsmith found it an enhancement, generating consensus for presidential decisions. Mukasey placed himself squarely in Goldsmith's camp. "I would certainly suggest going to Congress whenever we can. It always strengthens the hand of the president," Mukasey said. "Unilateralism, across the board, is a bad idea."

The question remains - will he walk the walk?

The incompetence of the Bush Administration

Dan Balz has an interesting article on how the descent of the Bush administration began with the catastrophic incompetence following Katrina.

Bush's presidency took a fateful turn during Katrina and reminders of the damage inflicted from that storm were resurrected again this week with the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. What linked the two events -- and what has left the president permanently weakened -- were perceptions of incompetence within the Bush administration.

Certainly Bush suffered from other problems as Katrina began to make its way through the Gulf of Mexico. By then, public support for the war in Iraq had begun to significantly erode. By then the president's audacious plan to restructure Social Security was on life support on Capitol Hill. His approval rating had fallen into negative territory.

But the storyline of a bungling administration was far from fully realized before Katrina hit the coast. Democrats had lost too many elections to Bush to conclude that his political team was a gang that couldn't shoot straight. The White House team enjoyed grudging respect from Democratic opponents for its discipline, strategic impulses and, yes, competence. Public approval of the president, while drifting down, was not yet in the danger zone.

Katrina suddenly changed all that. Bill McInturff, the Republican pollster, did an analysis Katrina's effect on Bush's approval ratings in the summer of 2006 and concluded that almost a year after the storm, the president was still suffering a post-Katrina hangover.

It is indeed interesting that the most incompetent AG ever was finally forced to resign near the anniversary of Katrina. What Katrina did was get people to look at everything else the administration had done. The incompetence of Karl Rove had surfaced in the attempt to do away with Social Security. Oh, and there was also the Terri Schiavo debacle. If you looked real close you could already see signs that the two wars that Bush and Cheney had started were not going too well.

And now the Bush sycophants in the Republican party are having second thoughts - a little late.

Much more than Katrina explains the continuing drop in Bush's support in the past 12 months, but there is little doubt that the hurricane crystallized negative perceptions about Bush's performance that he never has been able to shake. And in the fallout from the Gonzales resignation on Monday, there were renewed complaints that echoed the criticism after Katrina, that the administration lacks basic competence in dealing with problems.

By now this is a fully developed critique. Republicans look at the Gonzales tenure and see incompetence at almost every level. They see an attorney general who, for all his personal attributes, lacked the competence to run the Justice Department. They see a White House that, faced with a revolt that began with Democrats but eventually included many prominent Republicans, waited months before taking action to bring an end to his tenure.

But they see this now not as an isolated example but as a pattern. Even among Republican loyalists, almost no one defends the administration's management of the war in Iraq. They resent that Bush took so long to get rid of Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. They recall his decision to nominate Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. They look at the midterm elections of 2006 and see a White House that, publicly at least, kept asserting that Democratic gains could be kept to a minimum.

What worries Republicans most is that the damage inflicted by the administration now costs them as much as it does the president, which has caused Republican elected officials, presidential candidates and GOP strategists to wish for a speedy end to the administration.

One GOP strategist complained yesterday that, while the White House may be worried about Bush's legacy, congressional Republicans fear the consequences of administration incompetence will affect them and their party in the coming election. "The incompetence comes at their price as much as the president's," the strategist said.

Well Republicans, you think it's bad now. These same guys who have started two war and fucked them both up want to go out with a bang and are doing everything they can to provoke a confrontation.

So why did Gonzo resign?

Sidney Blumenthal knows!

Once elected president, Bush immediately named Gonzales his White House counsel. To the extent that Gonzales was pliable he was useful. But his "remarkable journey," as he called it today in his resignation statement, was remarkable only for his unwavering subservience.

From the start, Rove and Gonzales were secret sharers. But one was "the Architect" and the other was "Fredo." With Rove's resignation, Gonzales lost the political and policy hand that had guided him all along. When the puppet master departed, the puppet collapsed in a heap.

Read the rest.

Just Say No - To Chertoff

So Gonzo is gone. Andrew Cohen does a nice job of summing up his place in history.

By any reasonable standard, the Gonzales Era at the Justice Department is void of almost all redemptive qualities. He brought shame and disgrace to the Department because of his lack of independent judgment on some of the most vital legal issues of our time. And he brought chaos and confusion to the department because of his lack of respectable leadership over a cabinet-level department among the most important in the nation.

So what now? Ed Morrissey says:

Will the White House nominate Michael Chertoff, as rumored? I tend to think that they'll go for someone less associated with the administration, hopefully learning from the nomination of Robert Gates at Defense that going outside can have its advantages. If they do nominate Chertoff, it promises not one but two bruising confirmation battles, the second to replace Chertoff at DHS. There has to be more quality choices available, even in a lame-duck administration.

Glenn Greenwald adds:

No matter what, they must ensure that Gonzales' replacement is a genuinely trustworthy and independent figure.

That means that Democrats must not confirm anyone, such as Michael Chertoff, who has been ensconced in the Bush circle. Instead, the DOJ and the country desperately need a completely outside figure who will ensure that the prosecutorial machinery operates independently, even if -- especially if -- that means finally investigating the litany of Executive branch abuses and lawbreaking which have gone almost entirely uninvestigated, as well uncovering those which remain concealed.

The standard excuse invoked by Democrats to justify their capitulations -- namely, that they cannot attract a filibuster-proof or veto-proof majority to defy the President -- will be unavailing here. They themselves can filibuster the confirmation of any proposed nominee to replace Gonzales. They do not need Blue Dogs or Bush Dogs or any of the other hideous cowards in their caucus who remain loyal to the most unpopular President in modern American history. The allegedly "Good Democrats" can accomplish this vital step all on their own. They only need 40 Senate votes to achieve it.

Of course a truly independent AG would present some serious problems for the Bush administration.

Theater of the absurd - hubris edition

Bush, Democrats struggle for spy deal

Congress and the White House struggled Friday over expanding authority to eavesdrop on suspected foreign terrorists in a high-stakes showdown over national security.

"We're still hopeful that something can be worked out," said Ellen Cioccio, a spokeswoman for Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, after a day of fitful negotiations. "They're still talking."

Democratic leaders cleared the way for votes on different measures — at least two in the Senate and one in the House.

That left the outcome in doubt hours after Bush implored Congress to send him a bill before leaving this weekend on a monthlong vacation.

In the House, Democrats claimed they had acceded to White House requests, but Bush's aides disputed that.

So Bush insists they the House and the Senate Stay in session until they give him the bill he wants. That worked pretty well in Iraq didn't it? So what does Bush want? This is double hubris.

The president threatened to veto any bill by the Democratic-led Congress that his intelligence director deemed unable "to prevent an attack on the country. . . McConnell and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would oversee the eavesdropping process, according to the White House plan. That prompted howls of protest from Democrats who distrust the attorney general to protect privacy rights. "We need a legal framework around this program," Reid said. "No more blank check for this attorney general, no more blank checks for any attorney general."

That's right Alberto Gonzales is going to oversee the program. You know Gonzo, the guy even the most partisan Republicans think is incompetent and everybody else thinks is a pathological liar, political hack and Bush/Cheney sycophant.

But of course security is not what it's all about, as lambert at Corrente explains.

Besides, this isn’t about surveillance at all. It’s about making sure the lawbreaking of the criminal Bush regime is never exposed and retroactively legalized, and about blaming the Dems when a second 9/11 happens on Bush’s watch.

I mean, it’s all too transparent, and right out of the Republican playbook. Why are the Dems even taking it seriously?

So go ahead congress - take that vacation. You don't deserve it but if you stay you might be tempted to do something stupid.

Update
Well they didn't leave before it was too late
Senate passes Bush-backed spy bill
Ralph says it all with just a title - Democrats Cave in Senate

New York Times - Impeach Gonzales

Think Progress reports that FOX News Sunday was unable to get anyone to come on and defend Alberto Gonzales.

Later in the show, host Chris Wallace revealed that no conservative would willingly defend Gonzales on Fox. “By the way, we invited White House officials and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to defend Attorney General Gonzales,” said Wallace. “We had no takers.”

Meanwhile in an editorial today the New York Times says that Gonzo should be impeached.

It confirmed what most people long ago concluded: that Mr. Gonzales is more concerned about doing political-damage control for Mr. Bush — in this case insisting that there was never a Justice Department objection to a clearly illegal program — than in doing his duty. But the White House continued to defend him.

As far as we can tell, there are three possible explanations for Mr. Gonzales’s talk about a dispute over other — unspecified — intelligence activities. One, he lied to Congress. Two, he used a bureaucratic dodge to mislead lawmakers and the public: the spying program was modified after Mr. Ashcroft refused to endorse it, which made it “different” from the one Mr. Bush has acknowledged. The third is that there was more wiretapping than has been disclosed, perhaps even purely domestic wiretapping, and Mr. Gonzales is helping Mr. Bush cover it up.

Democratic lawmakers are asking for a special prosecutor to look into Mr. Gonzales’s words and deeds. Solicitor General Paul Clement has a last chance to show that the Justice Department is still minimally functional by fulfilling that request.

If that does not happen, Congress should impeach Mr. Gonzales.

Simply opening impeachment hearings may be enough to get Gonzales to resign. Without such a threat Bush will not fire him or let him resign. There will be no special prosecutor. Impeachment should begin before the summer recess, the country can't wait.

Update
As usual Joe Gandelman has some excellent observations.

More than ever, Gonzales is in his post because one man in the United States wants him there. But in doing so, each day he’s there he hurts his own party, his own President — and to defend him White House Press spokesman Tony Snow has had to morph into a cross between Pinocchio and Nixon’s press secretary Ron Ziegler.

Two more strikes against Gonzo

Well it's two to one against Gonzo.
FBI director appears to contradict Gonzales' testimony
Sorry but he didn't "appear" to contradict Gonzo, he said he's a liar.

FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress Thursday that the confrontation between then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in Ashcroft's hospital room in 2004 concerned a controversial surveillance program -- an apparent contradiction of Senate testimony given Tuesday by Gonzales.

Mueller said he spoke with Ashcroft soon after Gonzales left the hospital and was told the meeting dealt with "an NSA [National Security Agency] program that has been much discussed, yes."

Mueller made the comment as he testified before the House Judiciary Committee.

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Gonzales, now attorney general, said he had visited the ailing Ashcroft in the hospital to discuss "other intelligence activities," not the surveillance program.

Mueller also testified Thursday that he had serious reservations about the program, which allowed surveillance without warrants, at the time of the dramatic internal administration showdown and threats of top-level resignations.

Mueller did not confirm he had threatened to resign, but he twice said he supported the testimony of former Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who testified that Gonzales and former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card tried to pressure Ashcroft to reauthorize a surveillance program against terror suspects.

And Sen Pat Leahy has requested that an independent special counsel be named to investigate whether Gonzales perjured himself during Capitol Hill testimony.

"The attorney general took an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Instead he tells the half truth, the partial truth and everything but the truth -- and he does it not once, not twice, but over and over and over again," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, at a news conference.

"We do not make this request lightly," the senators wrote in a letter to Clement. "We believe a special counsel is needed because it has become apparent that the attorney general has provided -- at a minimum -- half-truths and misleading statements."

Ed Morrissey on Gonzo

I noted below that the right has been slow to react to the performance of Alberto Gonzales yesterday. The often reasonable Ed Morrissey has weighed in.

The reversals, the constant reclarifications, and the lack of any sense of personal control by Gonzales at Justice makes him appear to be one of the more incompetent Cabinet officials in recent memory. No one made any case for corruption at yesterday’s hearing, but a lack of criminality should not be the base qualification for remaining at the head of the DoJ — especially during a time of war. As Gonzales continues to flounder in a sea of his own contradictions, one has to wonder why the White House continues to allow this bleeding to continue.

If the White House is shrinking from a confirmation hearing on a replacement for Gonzales, it should remember that the DoJ serves the nation, and the nation deserves a competent and capable chief for this critical point in history. If Bush clings to Gonzales out of a sense of loyalty, then he should consider the damage that personal loyalty has done to his own credibility and the credibility of federal law enforcement. Gonzales is a mistake he can rectify, and Bush should do so immediately.

The Alberto Gonzales Show - Part II

Every time I think these people can't possibly surprise me any more I am proven tragically, horribly wrong. Yesterday Ron pointed out some of the jaw dropping high jinks of the AG, but what he did and said somehow pales in comparison to the things he didn't say. Or, more precisely, the things he refused to say. I was alerted to this almost hidden nugget by Josh Marshall over at TPM. They have the video of a frankly spectacular moment of the Justice Department giving up any and all pretense of impartial respect for and enforcement of the law and, as Marshall puts it, effectively telling a United States Senator, "Blow me." Be sure you click through and watch this video, but I'll do an on the fly transcription of one of the key pieces. Chuck Schumer is attempting to ask questions about the now infamous visit by Gonzales to the hospital bedside of John Ashcroft in their attempt to do an end run around the legal system.

Schumer: Let me ask you this. Who sent you to the hospital?
Gonzales: Senator, what I can say is that we had a very important meeting on this at the White House and...
S: That's not what I asked you.
G: I'm trying to answer your question.
S: Who sent you? Did the President send you?
G: The chief of staff of the president of the United States and the Chief Counsel to the President of the United States went to the hospital on behalf of the White House...
S: Did the President ask you to go?
G: We were there on behalf of the President of the United States.
S: Did he ask you to go?
G: We were there on behalf of the President of the United States.
S: Why can't you answer the question?
G: That's the answer I can give you.
S: Can you explain to me why you can't answer the question?
G: Senator, again, we were there on a very important program for the President...
S; Did you talk to the president about it beforehand?
G: Senator, obviously there were a lot of discussions during that period of time...
S: Sir. You are before this committee, you're supposed to answer the questions, you've not claimed any privilege, I don't see any here, and I asked you a question. You refused to answer it?
G: Sir, I'll go back.. if I could answer the question I'll answer the question.
S: Can you tell me why you can't answer the question?
G: Senator, again, because this relates to activities when I was in the White House.. and because of that, with respect to your specific question, I will go back and see if I can answer the question.
S: Did the Vice President send you?
G: Senator, we were there on behalf of the president.
S: Did you talk to the vice president about it?
G: We were there on behalf of the president.
S: You won't answer that question as well, is that correct?
G; We were there on behalf of the president.

It goes on, but you get the idea. This was not a case of Gonzales claiming some form of privilege or trying the old, "I have no recollection of..." trick. He just sat there, stared at Schumer, and refused to answer. Josh sums up exactly what's going on here and why it should be so alarming.

Testifying before Congress is like being called to testify in court. You have to answer every question. Every question. You can fudge and say you don't remember something and see how far you get. Or you can invoke various privileges. And it's up to the courts to decide if the invocations are valid. But it's simply not permitted to refuse to answer a question. It is quite literally contempt of Congress.

The real question here is, however, when the person in question is the one who is supposed to be responsible for enforcing the law and bringing charges against the guilty, who do you go to in order to prosecute him? And what if Bush and Cheney just turn around and say, "Too bad. We're not budging." in response to your next line of attack?

We tried to tell you!

We tried to tell you back in 2005 and you wouldn't listen. The you is the Senate and the we is the Indie 500 now known as The Progblog Research Center. Here are some examples of what we were saying back then. A great deal has been written on the Gonzales testimony in front of the Senate today. My friend The Gun Toting Liberal says BUSTED: Alberto Gonzales Caught Either Blatantly Lying Or Confirming Existence Of Additional Warrantless Wiretapping Program(s?). Perhaps my favorite reaction is from Andrew Cohen at the Washington Post.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales deserves to be fired for his testimony Tuesday alone; for morphing into Jon Lovitz's famous "pathological liar" character (or maybe just one of the Marx Brothers) as he tried to dodge and duck responsibility before the Senate Judiciary Committee not just for his shameful leadership at Justice but also his shameless role in visiting an ailing John Ashcroft in the hospital to try to strong-arm him into renewing the warrantless surviellance program. Can anyone out there remember a worse, less-inspiring, less confidence-inducing performance on Capitol Hill? I cannot.

No reasonable person watching Gonzales' tragically comedic performance Tuesday's on Capitol Hill-- especially his miserable exchange with Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) in late morning-- can any longer defend his appalling lack of competence, courage and credibility.

To the Democratic Senators who refused to listen to us the first time we are going to attempt to give you some advice again. Alberto Gonzales must be removed from office. He's not going to leave on his own and Bush is not going to fire him so it's up to you in the Senate to do it.

After Thought
How much hubris do Bush and Gonzo have? With bi-partisan threats of a special prosecutor and a Senate contempt citation will they decide it might be advantageous for Gonzo to spend more time with his family? I don't see it, I think they have plenty of hubris left. I say bring it on!

Note
You can find recent and recomended Indie 500 posts at Ralph's Newsfare and in the left side bar here.

Update
I just went over to memeorandum to see the reaction from the right on the Gonzales testimony. Although over hald the front page is Gonzales there are no reactions from the right - none - zero.
''''''
Well now there is one. One of the wingiest wingnuts of them all, Macsmind, takes the opportunity to attack both Comey and Jay Rockefeller.

Lying? I’ll tell you who is lying, Comey himself, the hand picked Schumer Stooge who is well behind this farce and was the instrumental indiot behind getting the Plame Game.

Credibility Check PLEASE!

If that weren’t bad enough we have Mr. (I’ve been to Syria, told them our war plans, and boy are my lips tired) Rockefeller talking about “getting the story straight”.

Have another shot of Kool-Aid and go out and buy yourself a new brown shirt Mac.

The latest on Gonzo

I was going to do a most on William W. Mercer's decision to spend more time at his other job and what it meant to Abu Gonzales and his "Justice" Department but my friend The Gun Toting Liberal did it for me. Check it out!

A Legacy Of Dangerous Incompetence

The legacy of George W. Bush will be incompetence at all levels of his administration. Even many on the right now admit that Donald Rumsfeld will go down as one of the most incompetent "leaders' of the DOD ever. Condolezza Rice was one of the most incompetent National Security Advisers and was allowed to advance and become the most incompetent Secretary of State. Vice President Dick Cheney is not so much incompetent as he is insane. The result of all of this of course is an incredibly dangerous situation in the Middle East. But of course it doesn't stop there.
The Price of Blind Loyalty

For months now we've talked about how the scandal at the Justice Department would have a terrible impact upon the government's ability to adequately and accurately enforce and ensure the rule of law. Now we are beginning to see precisely how this is happening. No longer can anyone claim that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales' lack of leadership and candor hasn't hurt his troops "on the ground" -- in the federal courts.

In this morning's Los Angeles Times, Richard Schmitt tells us: "Defense lawyers in a growing number of cases are raising questions about the motives of government lawyers who have brought charges against their clients. In court papers, they are citing the furor over the U.S. attorney dismissals as evidence that their cases may have been infected by politics. Justice officials say those concerns are unfounded and constitute desperate measures by desperate defendants. But the affair has given defendants and their lawyers some new energy, which is complicating life for the prosecutors."

Yesterday, in the Washington Post, came the news about "vacancy problems" at the Justice Department caused in part by the scandal and also by the White House's reaction to it. And in the Sunday New York Times came the thumbsucker piece about how the subpoenas issued last week to former White House counsel Harriet Miers and former White House political director Sara Taylor are going to cause a legal showdown over executive privilege.

Were these problems and confrontations avoidable? Absolutely.A strong and independent attorney general never would have let such partisanship seep into the Justice Department from the White House; never would have given creative defense attorneys another argument to make in court against the government. (And the fact that some of these arguments will never succeed is beside the point; that federal prosecutors now have to defend themselves and their political motives drains time and energy and resources away from legitimate business.)

We now have a Justice Department that is unable to recruit talented attorneys and prosecutors that spend more time defending themselves than they do prosecuting. Yes this is the fault of the incompetent Alberto Gonzales but ultimately it is the fault of the most incompetent President in recent history if not ever.

And at the bottom of it all-- or at the top of it all, depending upon your view -- is the president of the United States. His failure to fire his buddy Gonzales, and his failure to demand (sincerely and not just for the cameras) that all of his subordinates cooperate with the investigation, has brought us to this unhappy place, where smart lawyers don't want to work at the Justice Department, current prosecutors have to defend their political persuasions in court, and the judicial system has to now gear up for a constitutional showdown that long ago could have been avoided. All of this is the price all of us are paying for one man's blind loyalty to another.

George W. Bush wanted a legacy. He will have one - the most incompetent administration in history.

Running out of delegees

Judging from the testimony of "AG" Alberto Gonzales he had delegated the entire job to others and really didn't have a clue as to what was going on in the Justice Department. Well another one of the delegees quit today.
Official close to attorney firings quits

WASHINGTON — A senior Justice Department official who helped carry out the dismissals of federal prosecutors said Friday he is resigning. Mike Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, is the fifth Justice official to leave after being linked to the dismissals of the prosecutors.

Elston was accused of threatening at least four of the eight fired U.S. attorneys to keep quiet about their ousters. In a statement Friday, the Justice Department said Elston was leaving voluntarily to take a job with an unnamed Washington-area law firm.

The firings have led to congressional investigations, an internal Justice Department inquiry and calls on Capitol Hill for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

He probably needed to make more money to pay for all those attorneys he thinks he might need.

Since no one in their right mind would go to work for the Gonzales Justice Department it may become necessary for Gonzo to do the job himself soon. Maybe that will be enough to convince him to quit so he can continue to spend time with his family.

Novak on Bush, Libby and Gonzales

After six years the Republicans are discovering that the sorry man-child they have been supporting like a pack of sycophants for the last six years doesn't care about anyone but himself. Robert Novak explains:
Standing by the Wrong Guy

Just when it seemed George W. Bush's sinking prestige with his Republican base had bottomed out, his stock hit new lows. The president's seeming indifference to the sentencing of Scooter Libby was bad enough. But it coincided with Bush's apparent determination to retain his friend Alberto Gonzales as attorney general against congressional pressure to depose him.

Prevailing opinion among Republican office holders, contributors and activists could not differ more from Bush's posture. They regard Libby as a valuable public servant who faces serious prison time thanks to prosecutorial abuse made possible by Bush administration decisions. They see Gonzales as an embarrassment to the party who presides over a hollow Justice Department while presidential staffers search for Senate votes to block a no-confidence motion.

We know how the Base feels about Libby but how do they really feel about Gonzales. Novak is in a good position to know.

In contrast, Republican insiders are enraged by Bush's retention of Gonzales, whom they consider a political and governmental disaster. Beyond his affection for Gonzales, the president is reported to fear that a new attorney general could not be confirmed without pledging to name a special prosecutor to investigate the firing of U.S. attorneys. That explanation suggests a lame-duck regime, preferring to stay with a crippled, leaderless Justice Department.

And the Libby-Gonazales flap is not all.

The Gonzales-Libby equation is symbolic of Republican discontent with the president. He failed utterly to narrow the divide within the party over his immigration reform. Time is running out -- to less than three months -- on GOP forbearance on Iraq. In the closing months of the administration, key posts are unfilled and what old hands call "children" fill others. Facing multiple investigations, Bush aides without personal fortunes are threatened by daunting legal fees.

So it took the Republicans six years to figure out what the rest of us know in 2001. George W. Bush doesn't care about the country, he doesn't care about the Republican party, he doesn't care about people who have been loyal to him - he only cares about George W. Bush; the 60 year old adolescent.

Lawless

I discussed Harry Reid's attempt to halt the Bush Administration's political "recess appointments below. It seemed like a good idea but Dr. Steven Taylor and others point out that the Constitution is not clear on this and that Bush may just decide he can do ti anyway.

Reid may be basing his ten-day cycle on a 1921 Attorney General opinion that a ten day gap was likely too short a recess, but a 1993 DoJ briefing argued for a gap of as small as 3 days. I noted these opinions here. James notes a number of recess appointments made during brief recesses (as short as 11 days).

My guess is that President Bush would be willing, based on his track record, to make a recess appointment for a recess of 24 hours, and then seek to fight it out with the Senate. As such, James is right: this won’t work.

The New York Times has an editorial this morning, Why This Scandal Matters, talking about the US Attorney Purge and the Justice Department.

Justice Department headquarters has become deeply partisan. Young operatives like Ms. Goodling were apparently allowed to hire and promote based on party membership. Political appointees cleared the way for laws designed to disenfranchise minority voters, and brought litigation to remove Democratic-leaning voters from the rolls.

The department’s integrity lies in tatters. As a result of the purge, Tim Griffin, a Republican operative and Karl Rove protégé, was installed as the top federal prosecutor in eastern Arkansas. Rachel Paulose, a 33-year-old Republican activist with thin prosecutorial experience, was assigned to Minnesota. If either indicted a prominent Democrat tomorrow, everyone would believe it was a political hit.

Congress has to save the Justice Department, something President Bush shows no interest in doing. It should pass a resolution of “no confidence” in Mr. Gonzales, and push for his removal. But it also needs to insist on new leadership that will restore the department’s traditions of professionalism and impartiality, and re-establish that in the United States, the legal system does not work to advance the interests of a political party.

That sounds really good but the reality is Bush will simply ignore the congress if they attempt to make DOJ the justice department for all Americans not just the Republican Party.

I have not been a supporter of the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney but it is becoming obvious that the only way to end the lawlessness in the White House is to remove them from office in the only way the constitution allows. And I'm not just talking about Alberto Gonzales.

A quick message to the Democrats who control both the House and the Senate: the only thing you can do that George W. Bush will pay any attention to is impeachment. Anything else you try to do is a waste of time so don't bother.

To hell with a no-confidence vote......

.....just impeach the lying bastard.
Dems Seek No-Confidence Vote on Gonzales

WASHINGTON (AP) - Two Senate Democrats said Thursday they will seek a no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales over accusations that he carried out President Bush's political agenda at the expense of the Justice Department's independence.
Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Dianne Feinstein of California, who have led the investigation into the conduct of White House officials and Gonzales, said the attorney general has been too weakened to run the department.

You are damned right he "has been too weakened to run the department" which is why he needs to go now. The fact that he is an incompetent lying bastard is probably also a good enough reason. So why bother with a no confidence vote? Just make it clear to Gonzo and Bozo in the White House that he resigns or he gets fired by the congress. Is that really all that difficult?

Update
Steve Soto agrees and has more:

The problem for Gonzales is that he and Bush already have a credibility problem with Congress on the federal attorney sackings, where Hagel, Pat Roberts and other GOP senators now want Gonzales gone or predict he will resign for misleading them on the scope of the sackings originally planned, many of course in political battleground states. Beyond that though, as Jonathan Turley noted, the revelations from Comey confirm that the president condoned an unauthorized and illegal domestic spying program, which is an impeachable offense. The White House knows they are on very shaky ground now, as evidenced by Bush’s tap dance today. Glenn Greenwald states clearly that what we have here is a president who condoned an illegal domestic spying program for over two years that was so egregious that his own Justice Department hierarchy and FBI director threatened to resign over it. Yet Bush went ahead with it anyway, and then dumped Ashcroft after the election and solved his problem by appointing Gonzales to bury any threats of such illegality seeing the light of day while Bush was in office in the hope that they could ride it out for 4 years.

And then came the unforeseen 2006 midterm result. The Bush Administration may have finally hit the rocks this week, especially when both the Bush-enabling Post and the NYT now want to know what illegal activity Bush authorized for those 2 ½ years that we are just now finding out about.

The lowest of the low

When the Indie 500, now the PBRC, came into being to fight the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to be Attorney General I don't think any of us realized what an Un-American immoral low life he was. He has succeeded in making John Ashcroft look like a good guy. Other than the White House and the WSJ editorial board he has few supporters. My own somewhat right leaning local paper, The Oregonian, has a good editorial today where they join the chorus demanding that Gonzales be replaced.
Gonzales and the character issue

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., told reporters recently "it would be helpful" if Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned.

That was two months ago. Today, his resignation would be even more helpful.

Whatever remaining shred of credibility Gonzales still possessed essentially vanished April 19 during his pathetic appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee. More than 70 times that day he testified that he couldn't remember details about important decisions in the Justice Department, including last year's controversial purge of federal prosecutors.

Gonzales was worse than just incompetent. He was evasive -- unacceptable in the nation's top law enforcement officer.

Events this week did nothing to help him on the character issue. A former senior Justice Department official said Tuesday that Gonzales once tried to pressure a bedridden Attorney General John Ashcroft into approving a controversial Bush administration spying program.

The searing testimony came from James Comey, the former deputy attorney general who briefly assumed the No. 1 Justice Department job during Ashcroft's hospitalization for emergency gallbladder surgery in 2004. Comey told senators he was disgusted by what he witnessed that night: "an effort to take advantage of a very sick man" by Gonzales, at that time the White House counsel, and by Andrew Card, Bush's chief of staff.

To his credit, Ashcroft "lifted his head off the pillow" and flatly refused to support the domestic spying plan, Comey said. Bush later allowed the program to continue without the Justice Department signing off on its legality.

We were harsh critics of Ashcroft as attorney general, but in that late-night drama he appeared to be a giant compared with his unprincipled visitor. What Gonzales purportedly tried to do in that hospital room was reprehensible.

Should we be surprised, though, at the lengths he is willing to go to do the bidding of the White House? Hardly.

Remember, it was Gonzales who wrote a memo to Bush saying the war on terrorism "renders obsolete" the Geneva Conventions. He also had a key role in a Justice Department memo loosening the definition of what constitutes torture.

The Justice Department is crumbling under widespread reports of rock-bottom morale and an almost complete absence of confidence in Gonzales. He has brought it on through inept leadership and his stonewalling on the central unanswered question in the U.S. attorney firings: Were any of them the result of unethical and possibly unlawful political interference?

Another event this week might have moved the nation slightly closer to getting some answers. Gonzales' right-hand man, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, announced his resignation and now appears destined for another congressional grilling on the firings.

McNulty sparked the furor with his initial testimony in February that the White House had only a marginal role in the ousters. When the subsequent release of documents showed that to be untrue, and that the White House may have been deeply involved in targeting prosecutors who resisted political pressure, a full-blown scandal erupted.

McNulty's next testimony, the unconstrained version, should be well-worth waiting for.

There is plenty of evidence that would justify the impeachment of Alberto Gonzales and I can't help but think there would be plenty of Republican support to make it happen. The congress should make it clear to the White House that if they don't remove Gonzales the House will impeach and the Senate will convict. The Department of Justice can't survive another 18 months of Gonzales, that is reason enough to get rid of Gonzales.