The article "Bedtime for Gonzo" states "At this point, every day Alberto Gonzales continues as attorney general means more dishonor for the office and the nation -- and higher blood pressure for Senate Judiciary Committee members trying desperately to get a straight answer out of the man."
The "Democrats are threatening to investigate him for perjury. But it was Sen. Arlen Specter, a Republican, who looked Gonzo in the face and told him, "I do not find your testimony credible, candidly."Specter seems ready to pop a gasket. "The hearing two days ago was devastating" for Gonzo, Specter said yesterday. "But so was the hearing before that, and so was the hearing before that."
The article despairingly notes the confrontation of Ashcroft in his hospital room and quotes Gonzales "There are no rules governing whether or not General Ashcroft can decide 'I'm feeling well enough to make this decision," Gonzo said. When Specter pointed out that Ashcroft had already turned his powers over to Comey, Gonzo replied, "And he could always reclaim it. There are no rules." "While he was in the hospital under sedation?" Specter interrupted, before giving up on getting a straight answer. Gonzo answered the question, all right -- inadvertently, of course: "There are no rules."
Many progressive observers note that dissemination of propaganda has been the main objective of big bro 43's administration as "That's the guiding philosophy of this administration. As far as these people are concerned, there are no rules of common decency. There are no rules of customary practice. There are no rules governing respect for the truth, or even respect for the privacy and health of an ailing colleague.
And we all know who sets that tone.
Sen. Chuck Schumer tried valiantly to get Gonzo to say who sent him on that Mafia-movie errand to the hospital. Gonzo's a loyal soldier; he wouldn't snitch.
All Schumer got out of him was that the visit was "on behalf of the president of the United States."
FBI Director Robert Mueller works for Gonzales and was present at the inquisition of Ashcroft and has stated that the topic then was the aforementioned warrantless surveillance program. In fact Mueller testified that he is still in possession of the notes that he took because he felt, at the time, the events were, "out of the ordinary." He also testified that he had not shared the notes with anybody except for his counsel and perhaps close staff.
W and his boys will say that Mueller's notes are inaccurate, misleading or forged.
Gonzales said that there were not disagreements between the White House and senior members of the Justice Department over the warrantless surveillance program, but Mueller contradicted Gonzales' sworn testimony in that matter also.
W's minister of misinformation, Rove, has never seen a reality that he can't spin as "So when George W. Bush rewrote history the other day by saying that "al-Qaeda terrorists killed Americans on 9/11 [and] they're fighting us in Iraq," the tendency is to duly note that the president is not telling the truth -- there is no evidence whatsoever that al-Qaeda in Iraq, which didn't exist on Sept. 11, 2001, takes orders from Osama bin Laden -- and then move on."
Gonzales has been W's enabler as far back as their days in Texas and the article "Gonzales's Truthfulness Long Disputed -- Claims of Misstatements to Shield Bush Stretch Back a Decade" documents that and describes Gonzales' problems with the truth in wiretapping of U.S. citizens without warrants, which has a subset of crimes relating to mining databases for sensitive information, whether there was a dispute regarding NSA's illegal eavesdropping on us, the removal of a batch of U.S. attorneys, Gitmo, and civil liberties abuses under the USA Patriot Act.
We've learned from Watergate that people in high government posts can remember things but, "At a Senate hearing in April, for example, Gonzales said more than 60 times that he could not recall events or facts related to the firings, including a final, high-level meeting in his office at which the dismissal plan was formally approved."
Gonzales is a pathological liar and would have to be to enable his boss to perpetrate as many affronts on our constitution as "He's a slippery fellow, and I think so intentionally," said Richard L. Schott, a professor at the University of Texas's Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. "He's trying to keep the president's secrets and to be a team player, even if it means prevaricating or forgetting convenient things.""This almost subconscious bond of loyalty" between the attorney general and the president "may be driving a lot of this," said Schott, who has studied relations between the executive and legislative branches of government and the role of psychology in political behavior. "It's obvious that Gonzales owes Bush his career. Part of his behavior comes from this gratitude and extreme loyalty to Bush."The article notes "Questions about Gonzales's willingness to shade the truth on Bush's behalf came to prominence in the 1996 episode in which Bush was excused from Texas jury duty in a drunken-driving case. Bush was then the state's governor, and Gonzales was his general counsel. If Bush had served, he probably would have had to disclose his own drunken-driving conviction in Maine two decades earlier."
Gonzales, as well as Karen Hughes, also helped big bro 43 out the mess relating to W's skipping out of his Air Force guard duty. It is ironic that now W's illegal war uses our reservists as IED fodder.Now W has his entire Justice Department geared to stop the Democrats efforts to get Gonzales to convey the truth. Senate Democrats asked the Justice Department to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether Gonzales lied to Congress. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement is in charge of this because Gonzales and numerous other aides are recused. Bush is on the record as saying that the appointment of a special prosecutor that won't happen!
Even that plan will blow up in W's face as hugely as "Mission Accomplished" did as the article "In Prosecutors Probe, a Detour Around Courts" points out that "Congress could turn to an old and once frequently used procedure called "inherent contempt." In fact, the Senate Judiciary Committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), just this week talked up the idea, saying it "might be productive." Here's how it works:Instead of relying on an outside prosecutor, the House or the Senate can adjudicate a case against the executive branch or a private citizen. The chamber's sergeant-at-arms can arrest witnesses and haul them in for questioning."
Winston is an ex-Social Worker, burnt out by too much indifference regading our weak and weary who had too little interest in politics until the illegal Iraq War started.
"There are no rules for W's government. The trouble is that W's crimes blow up in our faces also. We are guilty by association of voting this lying fool in twice."
Don't even TRY to keep that meme alive, not even by accident. This lying fool STOLE two elections by a multitude of different mechanisms. "We" are only guilty of LETTING him.
by
Charlie L (2 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 714 comments)
on Wednesday, August 1, 2007 at 12:08:51 PM
Article is right on, except for the fact...both elections were stolen. It was obvious then, and its more so now. Those Republican Machines have been proven to be hackable, votes can and were changed. Voters were prevented from voting, and Supreme (no credibility assholes) stepped in and gave it to georgie boy...and the rest is history.......
by
joyce (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 73 comments)
on Wednesday, August 1, 2007 at 12:33:17 PM
Why can't it be both? When you stop to think about what the phrase "conspiracy theory" means (hypothesis is actually more correct than theory, all that is implied by the first word is that more than one person knew or did something that they didn't make public, and that this hasn't been proven yet. That's it. And that describes everything from a business board meeting to a surprise birthday party or a doctor's appointment. Plans are made in private or confidence every day by almost everybody who has a job or belongs to an organization that has private meetings.
But if you dare suggest that Republicans ever meet with one another and make plans that they don't report to the newspaper, you are readily subdued by the utterance of the phrase "conspiracy theory! conspiracy theory!" Your answer: when did the neocons ever do anything that wasn't borne of a conspiracy. You see, you're expected to conclude that there's no way that the Republicans stole the election because that would have required a conspiracy - a confidential plan known to two or more people - and only lunatics think that that ever happens.
Conspiracies are common and in many senses, normal. Has a couple ever made plans to be alone without telling their children what they were up to? Are you suggesting a conspiracy?
Somebody in America wants you to feel foolish for suggesting that people like them ever make secret plans when that issomething that almost all of us do every day.
by
Yaybob (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 174 comments)
on Friday, August 3, 2007 at 12:07:16 AM
Here are two of the primary reasons for this shituation:
First, Bushites believe they are 'right' and because God Almighty is on their side, anything and everything they do is ordained in heaven. Bush expressed it well when he said: "We don't torture!" In his mind it's not torture, it's crusading against evil and fighting "evil doers." This mindset springs directly from fundamentalism: Fundamentalist Christians crusading against fundamentalist Muslims -- both sides believe the same thing: that THEY have a direct line to god. They believe: "we're right because we're in power."
The second and perhaps more dangerous reason for "all this" is Republicans put loyalty to The Party above loyalty to the Constitution. This causes them to adhere to the Bushite party line even when they know he's leading them down the infamous "garden path."
by
mrk * (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 298 comments)
on Wednesday, August 1, 2007 at 4:20:59 PM
I swear I feel like we're living in the last chapter, of the last book, of Harry Porter, or the final battle scene in the Matrix. Good and Evil squared off with drawn swords, circling for the kill. The winner gets to lead us into a New Age of Enlightenment where wars are nevermore fought, or we suffer the depths of humane depravity on what remains of a scorched Earth.
Will we attack Iran? Will bush suspend the elections? Maybe Jeb will jump-in at the last moment and they'll let the fractured Dems and the vote rigging do the rest. Worst case, any of their sorry-ass front-runners could win and pick Jeb as VP.
We all know something has to happen soon before anymore of the sewer that in this administration spews forth. And whatever that "something" is scares the living shit out of me.
But my sword is drawn.
by
Mr M (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 15 diaries, 1674 comments)
on Thursday, August 2, 2007 at 12:10:39 AM
I have throughly researched and investigated this - the elections were stolen. And this is going to happen in 2008 (that is if we have the 2008 elections), if people both in front of and behind the scenes don't take action.
by
RCG (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 348 comments)
on Friday, August 3, 2007 at 12:09:29 AM
Currently in Iraq moderate Islamic people curse al-queda for killing fellow Muslims. When the barbarians attack us—and the world’s history predicts that al-queda will do so, their justification for killing innocent US citizens will be that all of the infidels deserve death. They won’t care who the blue staters have voted for.
The ranks of extremist jihadists are swelling because of big bro 43’s illegal occupation of Iraq. Most GOP political goons are trying to figure out a political manner to shed themselves from W’s failed GWOT—so maybe the US citizen’s opinion of this matter is finally starting to register on the GOP.
Our allies are deserting us because they knew from the start that this current days’ “Crusade” was as insane as the one the world was subjected to earlier.
None of the political considerations matter though. We are marked for death because of W and are guilty by this association with the failed fool!
by
winston (117 articles, 17 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 31 comments)
on Saturday, August 4, 2007 at 3:11:13 PM
8 comments
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