The Heart Of The Matter

by DemFromCT

From the NY Times:

Mr. Iglesias said he had believed that his bosses shared his view that United States attorneys should stay above the fray. “I thought I was insulated from politics,” he said in an interview. “But now I find out that main Justice was up to its eyeballs in partisan political maneuvering.”

Since his ouster, Mr. Iglesias has received support from other federal prosecutors, who say the department failed to honor its obligation to ensure that decisions about prosecutions are free of political taint.

“People who understand the history and the mission of the United States attorney and Justice Department — they are uniformly appalled, horrified,” said Atlee W. Wampler III, chairman of a national organization of former United States attorneys and a prosecutor who served in the Carter and Reagan administrations. “That the tradition of the Justice Department could have been so warped by that kind of action — any American should be disturbed.”

So should anyone following the 2002 NH telephone jamming scandal, the Abramoff paygo scandal, or, yes, the pillorying of the Wilsons for political reasons. What's disturbing is the idea that the entire mechanism of the US government was turned into an extension of the RNC, whose purpose was to cement a permanent GOP majority by tilting the playing field in ways great and small.

What's equally disturbing is the willingness of so many in the trademed press to accept Republican arguments that 'they all do it' and that 'there's nothing to see, just move along, just politics as usual'. It's served the GOP well; the equivalence argument is pretty widespread. However, Murray Waas, writing in the National Journal this past Thursday, points out yet again how  "un-politics as usual" this all is.

Shortly before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales advised President Bush last year on whether to shut down a Justice Department inquiry regarding the administration's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, Gonzales learned that his own conduct would likely be a focus of the investigation, according to government records and interviews.

Bush personally intervened to sideline the Justice Department probe in April 2006 by taking the unusual step of denying investigators the security clearances necessary for their work.

It is unclear whether the president knew at the time of his decision that the Justice inquiry -- to be conducted by the department's internal ethics watchdog, the Office of Professional Responsibility -- would almost certainly examine the conduct of his attorney general.

There really needn't be a debate about this Administration as to whether they are malign or simply incompetent. It needn't be an either-or situation. And the truth of the matter is that the public understands all too well what's really going on.

A clear majority of the public believes the Bush administration’s firing of eight U.S. attorneys was politically motivated,  according to a new Newsweek poll. And the survey showed only weak support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

General Tony McPeak sums it up in Rolling Stone:

McPeak: This is a dark chapter in our history. Whatever else happens, our country's international standing has been frittered away by people who don't have the foggiest understanding of how the hell the world works. America has been conducting an experiment for the past six years, trying to validate the proposition that it really doesn't make any difference who you elect president. Now we know the result of that experiment [laughs]. If a guy is stupid, it makes a big difference.

There's a reason Bush is at 30% in the polls. You can't combine incompetence with malice and score any higher.

Comments

[DemFromCT]

even the media "blogs" get it...

... the Sunday news show lineup of guests reflects the gamut of politicians circling a White House under fire.

[freepatriot]

maybe repuglicans will realize that putting party before country just fucks up the party and the country

but I wouldn't count on it

[Melanie]

Dem,

The Sunday lineups have the potential for fireworks, as opposed to the usual Media Whores stenography. We'll see; I retain my skepticism. See you in front of the tube tomorrow morning.

[pol]

I posted this below, but ePluribus Media has a list of Democrats who have been investigated since the Bush administration began. They're asking for help finding comments from those Democrats who state they thought they were being targeted just because they're Democrats.

The link for ePluribus Media is
http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org/story/2007/3/15/

[Sara]

It's interesting to put in context the timeline of these discussions regarding getting rid of all 93 USA's, now apparently a product of Rove's shop, and not Miers. The E-mail thus far available put the discussions in late 2004 and early 2005 -- when Fitzgerald had just finished with Rove's pre-election Grand Jury appearance (was it #3?) and Fitzgerald's going into Court to enforce his subpoenas against Miller and Cooper -- leading into his brief to first the District Court and then the Court of Appeals, which ultimately won him the power to compel testimony from them regarding both Rove and Libby.

Could it be the notion of firing all 93 USA's was really about getting rid of Fitzgerald, but accomplishing this as a kind of Tsunamis action that would avoid focus on Fitzgerald's efforts against Rove and Libby? The dates suggest this could be the case.

Abramoff's problems were a bit different. Admittedly he had problems in Florida where a USA was handling the Sun Cruise indictment, but his lobby problems were the province of Main Justice and the Office of Professional Responsibility. Firing all the USA's would not have eliminated the cases out of Main Justice.

On Thursday last week Minnesota Public Radio had an interesting hour long interview on the noon program with two former USA's here in Minnesota. At the end of the interview, they said there had been much teleconferencing going on among former USA's last week, they said USA's that date back to the Carter Administration -- regarding action they could take to encourage Congress to seriously address the fundamental problems. MPR archives, so one can listen. The Wampler statement may be just the first piece of what they intend to do. What I am looking for is some sort of quite public action by the ABA. They have the standing to call on all Member State Bar Associations to review the standing and ethics of any attorney involved in this, and pull law tickets. If Wampler has lined up over two hundred former USA's for common action and statements, can the ABA be all that far behind? I bet they are heavy into teleconferencing too at this point.

[darclay]

I'm not so sure that the Republican party is putting the party before the country as it is the majority of those crooks and criminals that have gerymandered the party for their own benefit. ie Power, money and an empire with them at the top.

[darclay]

good morning Sara, I personally think that these proscutors started investigating the Lewis, Cunningham,Abermoff scandels they began to uncover all of the scams this Admin, is involved in.

[Mimikatz]

It is all of a piece. If you set out to create a permanent GOP majority, you need lots of money. You get money through the Abramoff shakedown operations and by putting government contracts, especially defense contracts, up for sale for campaign cash. You also tilt the playing field through gerrymandering, racial and otherwise, voter suppression efforts and dirty tricks.

But most of this is illegal. So in addition to compliant toadies in key Congressional committees (think Pat Roberts and Tom Davis) you need to have a sympathetic head (or second in command to a dork head) at Justice to keep a lid on everything, plus be able to rely on USA's doing as they are told and in addition investigating the hell out of Dems to keep them off guard.

They had it all except the USA's, although clearly they had a few of those too. But Carol Lam started investigating defense contractors, then Cunningham and Jerry Lewis, McKay wouldn't cooperate in charging election fraud in WA where there was none, and Iglesias insisted on being deliberate. And, yes, there was Patrick Fitzgerald, although I think they thopught they could contain that scandal to Libby, as has happened.

So pull one thread (in this case the USA thread) and the whole thing comes unraveled.

What I think is interesting is the mainstream press slowly waking up to the fact that it really has been that bad, and Bush really has been that bad as well as that incompetent for the past 6 years. Look at the stories they missed (except for the few, like Dana Priest) all those years.

And just look at what lies ahead.

[Mimikatz]

And I did think of one possible candidate to replace Gonzales--John Cornyn. He was Texas AG, is more or less a crony, and they would think the Senate would have a hard time not confirming him. Plus he's up in 2008 and the Dems are recruiting candidates to run against him.

Of course I thought he might get the second Supreme Court appointment for much the same reasons but was wrong then. But Bush is much weaker now then when he appointed Alito. At least this time we know it won;t go to Harriet Miers.

[TeddySanFran]

W announces the replacement the same time as the resignation. I wonder who's up at Camp David this weekend? Betcha the Beltway press ensconced up there are sworn to secrecy.

Cornyn's a good bet.

[Mimikatz]

Not, mind you, that I was saying Cornyn was a good pick. Just someone who they might think they could both live with and get through the Senate. Of course, why would he take it?

[joejoejoe]

Where are all these damning emails coming from in the Gonzales/US Attorney purge scandal?

- why is the White House releasing damning documents?
- is somebody in DoJ leaking the documents? In the White House?

It seems odd that the White House wouldn't sit on this material if at all possible.

Can somebody explain how the damning emails went public?

[Ace Armstrong]

The GOP has created a substratum that has allowed the innoculation and growth of cultures of corruption, incompetence and celebrity. As these cultures simultaneously diverge and overlap they have culminated in a perfect storm of calamity.
After only six weeks of Democratic control of Congress the groundswell of evidence that indicts this political and social catasrophy increases at an alarming rate while the Republicans only damage control is to keep insinuating that there is no more information forthcoming and that they have only been acting in everyone's(i.e. the country's) best interest.
Abramoff, Cunningham and the San Diego connections (Wilkes et al) are only the tip of the iceberg of corruption within the Military Industrial Complex.
Before the Iraq War oil was $20/bbl, Haliburtion was $20/share, and the Taliban had sucessfully suppressed the production of opium poppies. Last summer oil peaked around $70/bbl, Haliburtion split two for one at a little over $66/share and opium poppy production hit an all time high.
The real question is how far are the Democrats willing to push the envelop before they expose the underbelly of the DLC.