Confidence in Gonzales?

[Al in NYC]

Of course if the Democrats in the House had any guts they'd be holding impeachment hearings right now. But they've left it to the Senate Dems to take this futile, toothless, and apparently doomed to failure, move. IMO, they'd really be better off doing nothing than this crap.


From the NEW YORK TIMES:

No Confidence Vote on Gonzales Is Expected to Fail

By DAVID JOHNSTON and ERIC LIPTON
Published: June 11, 2007

WASHINGTON, June 11 — Senate Democrats appeared likely to fall short in their effort late this afternoon to force a vote of no confidence in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, leaving his critics in Congress uncertain about what to do next in their campaign to dislodge him from office.

Despite deep misgivings in both parties about his performance, Mr. Gonzales has refused to resign and President Bush has continued to back him.

Democratic leaders needed 60 yes votes in the Senate this afternoon for what is known as a cloture motion, ending debate and allowing the no-confidence resolution itself to come to a vote.

Party head-counters predicted that they would come close, with one or more Republicans joining most Democrats, but that they would not reach the 60-vote threshold.

In recent months, Mr. Gonzales has been embroiled in controversy over the firings of federal prosecutors, and by more recent disclosures that partisan considerations had guided the filling of lower-level nonpolitical jobs at the Justice Department.

Even though Mr. Gonzales and President Bush appeared to be succeeding in warding off the no-confidence resolution, the spectacle of the Attorney General’s shortcomings being openly debated on the Senate floor was painfully embarrassing for the White House and its Republican allies on Capitol Hill.

Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, derided the nonbinding resolution as a “misguided and inappropriate” assault on the separation of powers spelled out in the Constitution. The attorney general does not need the “confidence” of the Senate to hold his post, Mr. Hatch said.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and a member of the judiciary panel, countered that the attorney general’s office under Mr. Gonzales had become “an extension of the White House,” and that Mr. Gonzales should resign.

An attorney general must be “an independent leader with an unyielding commitment to the law,” Senator Feinstein said, but Mr. Gonzales had “not lived up to this standard.”

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, another former chairman of the judiciary committee and now its ranking Republican, said he would vote in favor of the resolution, even though “the Senate has a lot more important things to do.”

“The department at the present time is in shambles,” Mr. Specter said.

Current and former Justice Department officials have complained that the agency is dispirited and drifting under Mr. Gonzales, whose standing and credibility have badly eroded in Congress and within the agency, hastened by his admissions in congressional testimony that he was only marginally involved in the firings and could not recall many pertinent details.

Moreover, Mr. Gonzales’ position seemed to slip further after gripping testimony last month by a former deputy attorney general, James B. Comey. Mr. Comey described an incident in March 2004, when Mr. Gonzales was White House counsel and John Ashcroft, Mr. Gonzales’s predecessor as Attorney General, was hospitalized with pancreatitis.

In response to a legal analysis by the department declaring that a warrantless eavesdropping program authorized by the president was unlawful, Mr. Gonzales and Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff, went to Mr. Ashcroft’s hospital room to get his authorization to continue the program even though he had just undergone gall bladder surgery. Mr. Ashcroft refused.

Mr. Specter appeared to be the only Senate Republican saying publicly today that he would back the resolution. He has criticized the Justice Department for months as dysfunctional and rudderless under Mr. Gonzales.

“Do I have confidence in Attorney General Gonzales? The answer is a resounding no,” Mr. Specter said during a news conference in Philadelphia that previewed his remarks on the Senate floor. “I’m going to vote that I have no confidence in Attorney General Gonzales.”

But other Republicans said that they viewed the resolution as a partisan effort by Democrats aimed at undercutting Mr. Bush, who repeated his support for Mr. Gonzales at a news conference today in Sofia, Bulgaria, as he prepared to return to Washington.

“They can have their votes of no confidence, but it’s not going to make the determination about who serves in my government,” Mr. Bush said. “This process has been drug out a long time. It’s political.”

It was not clear where Democrats would turn next in pushing for Mr. Gonzales’s ouster. The investigation into the firings of the United States Attorneys appears to nearing an end, with an appearance by the deputy attorney general, Paul J. McNulty, before the House Judiciary Committee likely later this month.

The Senate-led effort to compel the testimony of Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, and Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, about their role in the dismissals has been stalled by disagreements between White House and the Senate judiciary panel. So far, the committee has authorized but has not issued subpoenas to force their appearance.

The events culminating in the vote today have been building since January, when Democrats learned that eight United States Attorneys had been forced from their jobs without being given a reason.

In response to Senate and House inquiries, the Justice Department offered differing explanations, at first asserting that the prosecutors had been dismissed for performance failings and that the White House had played only a minor role.

Later, Justice Department officials acknowledged that most of the fired prosecutors had received highly favorable performance evaluations, and that the White House had initiated their dismissal after the 2004 elections.

David Stout contributed reporting.

[Gordon B]

What's scary to me is that Bush would have nominated Gonzales to the SCOTUS, ahead of Miers/Roberts if he thought he could have gotten him confiremd.

[patricia]

I'm puzzled by President Bush brushing aside the criticism of Gonzales by saying that "it's all political."
Isn't the office and the business of the office of the President of the United States ALL political??
Their business is politics.
George W Bush is the head politician.
So, what is the deal when the President feels he can dismiss any criticism of his handling of his office as all political, thus unimportant??

[Dr Dave]

The vote failed, but at least there was a majority (53) in favor.

"Politics" is what motivates the other guys. We're trying to get something constructive done, and the other guys keep playing politics!

[Scott Dolan]

Hahahaha..........


Finch, THIS is why I love you, brother!

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

The vote failed, but at least there was a majority (53) in favor.

"Politics" is what motivates the other guys. We're trying to get something constructive done, and the other guys keep playing politics!

Baseball players play baseball.
Politicians play politics.
It's what they do.

[Monte Smith]

It is rather a contradictory exercise: the gist of the beef with Gonzales is that he allowed politics to affect firing. So Congress wants to have a vote and see if they can get him fired.

[Gary Sisco]

It's clear to me that the dims simply don't have the cojones necessary to confront the admin with Congress's own constitutional powers, which in some ways exceed the president's and were intended to, Congress being the only branch of government elected directly by the people.

When they're in a minority position, they claim (for as long as I can remember) to be powerless. When they are in a majority position, they decide to behave as if they are powerless.

Question, then: Of what use to the people is this party?

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

It is rather a contradictory exercise: the gist of the beef with Gonzales is that he allowed politics to affect firing. So Congress wants to have a vote and see if they can get him fired.

The one point that still trikes me as odd is when people say the U.S. attorneys were fired for political reasons. Well, they were political appointees, right? So why can't they be political firees?

[Gary Sisco]

This is because you are confusing the word "politics" with "partisan," and even, in this case, especially, with personal loyalty to the president and his wishes, regardless of what the law actually is. The law does not change. One of those fired was fired because those in the admin responsible for firing him had concluded that he was too zealously enforcing people's voting rights. In other words, because he was doing his job rather too well for their tastes, given their obvious contempt for the Constitution itself.

If you can't understand these questions, then there was an awful lot of hot air in the 90s over the Clintons and their use of political power for personal reasons -- a subject republicrats were very zealously not only criticizing but raving about, literally, raving about, not to mention spending enormous amounts of other people's confiscated wages looking into these questions in microscopic detail, for years on end. I don't recall republicrits objecting at the time or merely writing off wrong behavior as acceptable because it's "politics" and what else can one expect. It is only now when the shoe's on the other foot that they raise objections.

These sorts of flip-flops over time offer objective enough evidence to me that there is almost no one in a position of power in either party that understands that political principle exists only when it is observed.

This admin has demanded not only political and partisan loyalty -- to unheard of extremes -- but also *personal* loyalty to the president himself, *regardless* of law or Constitution.

That's the issue. Using words like "political" idiotically changes nothing.

A political appointee is not required or expected to operate outside law or constitution in the US, nor are they required to prove any kind of personal loyalty to the fuhrer by refusing to do the job for which, once hired, they are paid to perform. Their offices do not exist to serve the president or his personal issues. Their offices exist to serve the people of the United States by enforcing law and protecting Constitutional rights.

If you can't understand these points, it's not because your objections make any sense. It's because you are too dense to understand them and also because, if I am to take these remarks seriously (which I don't in Dolan's case), you either don't understand the Constitutional system or don't want to, for reasons of your own. It's impossible to take Dolan seriously on any political question because he challenges anything that anyone says as an MO behind which there seems to be no ideas or principles of his own. He merely plays the sophomoric devil's advocate game whatever the question is.

[tristano's ghost]

As Josh Marshall points out, funny how the media is reporting that the Repubs "blocked" the vote. They filibustered it... you know, that big, nasty word that got thrown around all the time when the D's were in the minority.

House should move to impeach Gonzales. Bush won't replace him... he knows where too many of the bodies are buried. For the good of the country I wish he'd move on, but hey, he's a great poster-boy for GOP corruption, soooo...if Bush won't dump him, we'll just have to settle for partisan gain, which seems to be the only language he understands.

[Scott Dolan]

I was making a joke, Gary.

And my political knowledge is a hell of a lot deeper than you wrongly assume. I just don't have the time or petience to get into protracted pissing contests with you anymore. Besides, you have grown far too inconsistent over the last couple of years. Which leads me to believe you sometimes make off the cuff remarks that you later forget making.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by tristano's ghost

As Josh Marshall points out, funny how the media is reporting that the Repubs "blocked" the vote. They filibustered it... you know, that big, nasty word that got thrown around all the time when the D's were in the minority.

House should move to impeach Gonzales. Bush won't replace him... he knows where too many of the bodies are buried. For the good of the country I wish he'd move on, but hey, he's a great poster-boy for GOP corruption, soooo...if Bush won't dump him, we'll just have to settle for partisan gain, which seems to be the only language he understands.

Filibuster is a word that will always be thrown around no matter who the minority is.

This protection of Gonzalez is downright embarrassing. Quite possibly the dumbest battle this administration has ever engaged in.

[patricia]

It always amuses me when politicians who are called on the carpet, as Gonzalez was, claim to know nothing about anything, or "can't recall."
They seem perfectly willing for the public, who employs them, to think that they are totally imcompetent, or are suffering from early-onset Altzeimers'.
Apart from Ronald Reagan during the Iran/Contra hearings, who actually had the condition, is it possible that there is some sort of epidemic of Altzeimers' sweeping the Bush Administration??

[Gary Sisco]

Originally Posted by patricia

They seem perfectly willing for the public, who employs them, to think that they are totally imcompetent

But they are, so at least they're honest in their presentation, if not in their words or deeds.

Indeed, this is the most inept bunch of my lifetime. Absurdly so.

Gonzales even fucks up his fuck ups.

Unfortunately the dims seem to so lack confidence or commitment to the real fight that would be required to confront this pack of murderous fools, that they just become another aspect of a bumbling but bloody horror show.

[jesus marion joseph]

Whomever ocupies the office of attorney general seems to always be a lightning rod for criticism, at least as long as I can remember, which goes back to the Nixon days. Matters not which party he/she is from, either. The other party and, indeed the entire populace, get up in arms about every AG. Why, oh why, would anyone want the job?

Having said that, I think Gonzales is probably the most weasely AG we've had in a long, long time, and I agree that the Republicans should literally be ashamed at even bothering to filibuster a vote which has no practical consequence either way.

[Gary Sisco]

None has more flagrantly trumpeted his contempt for the Constitution, though, in my time. They at least tried to pretend they were acting within it and upholding it. Gonzales does neither. To him these things are just a pain in the ass to mock or ignore.

As for the rethugs, read the paragraph above. Nothing could be clearer after the last six years.

[Gary Sisco]

Shaking Off Amnesia, Gonzales Remembers He's Actually Pool Salesman From Tulsa
June 11, 2007 | Issue 43•24

Shaking Off Amnesia, Gonzales Remembers He's Actually Pool Salesman From Tulsa


WASHINGTON, DC—Embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' future was thrown further into jeopardy Friday when he was accidentally struck by a boom microphone, reversing a years-long case of amnesia and causing him to remember his true identity as hotshot Tulsa, OK pool and spa salesman "Cabana Al" Gonzales.

"My God, what am I doing here?" a dazed Gonzales asked reporters in what they assured him was indeed his office. "The last thing I remember is slipping on some wet redwood decking out by the Boswicks' 16-by-48-foot in-ground El Tropico—beautiful pool, that one, with a hefty seven-percent commission attached—and then suddenly I'm waking up three years older, 25 pounds heavier, and defending my actions in the firing of eight federal prosecutors. Somebody has obviously made a really big mistake."

"Clearly, I should not be seventh in line for the presidency," Gonzales said. "Can I go home now?"

After being informed of the details of his recent legal career, including his opinion that the writ of habeas corpus is not represented in the Constitution and that law enforcement officers do not in fact need warrants to listen to phone calls made by private citizens, Gonzales expressed regret over "whatever it was [he] did" and apologized to anyone he may have inconvenienced by his actions over the past three years.

White House doctors say Gonzales' amnesia seems to have been completely eradicated, leaving him dazed, shaken, and unable to explain how he became the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government.

"Law never really interested me much," Gonzales said. "Got a brother-in-law who's a lawyer. Sold him a pool, actually. But that's it."

Archived footage from Tulsa local television found by Senate investigators shows him in several local commercials touting "Cabana Al" as "the pool salesman Tulsa trusts" as late as November 2004, mere days before Bush announced he would nominate Gonzales to succeed John Ashcroft for Bush's second term. Furthermore, voluntarily taken polygraph tests indicate that Gonzales has absolutely no idea how he came to be placed in his current job, where he is in charge of a $40 billion budget and more than 110,000 employees.

"Why the hell would anyone appoint me, of all people, to this position?" Gonzales asked. "All I know about law is a couple of local Tulsa zoning ordinances restricting how big a pool you can put in various-sized suburban lots. Hey, I didn't change any of those while I...when you all thought I was.... No? Man, what a shame."

The Senate has decided against holding a no-confidence vote on Gonzales, as those who opposed the attorney general believe their point has been made, and those who supported him acknowledge that he himself is pleading to be excused from duties so that he can return to the greater Tulsa area as soon as possible.

"It's already full-blown summer, and if I'm going to sell any in-ground units this year I have to start digging by the end of June or they won't be ready until September almost, and the commission on above-ground stuff is just pathetic," Gonzales told Congress.

The attorney general has so far rejected Bush's offers to strike him upon the head in an attempt to reverse his sudden, unexpected amnesia cure and restore him to his former mental state. On the advice of counsel, all of whom, it has been verified, are actual lawyers, Gonzales has said he will not comment further on White House business, except to say that, if the president is interested, he could hook him up with a good deal on a three-season heated "Olympia model" for the Rose Garden.

More Onion News

[gonzo]

i can always guarantee confidence in myself.

[Gary Sisco]

there've been a couple of times I felt not so confident. Both standing in front of a judge. I hope Gonzales finds himself in a like situation and gets that same feeling down low in his guts.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Shaking Off Amnesia, Gonzales Remembers He's Actually Pool Salesman From Tulsa
June 11, 2007 | Issue 43•24

Shaking Off Amnesia, Gonzales Remembers He's Actually Pool Salesman From Tulsa



More Onion News

God bless the Onion, when all you can do is laugh bitterly, knowing nothing will change. WHEW.