I’ll admit it, when I first heard that Alberto was resigning my first reaction was not to celebrate but to say, “oh-oh, what are they up to now?”

Sinister theories about recess appointments were thrown about, the Democrats in Congress were demonized and, oddly, the far-right seemed to happier that Gonzalez is leaving than many in the progressive blogosphere.

How sad that we’re so used to getting screwed over that we can’t recognize a victory even when we’ve achieved one. I’ve been trying to get a handle on this resignation all day, but it wasn’t until I read Sidney Blumenthal that I realized what a victory this is.

All of these various investigations have been moving closer to their targets (Rove and Alberto). Gonzalez has been contradicted by his subordinates and numerous others and, as Blumenthal points out, “As a practiced attorney, he knew that once he left government service he would become less interesting to investigators and that whatever revelations were unearthed would have less political impact.”

The resignations of Rove and Gonzalez are evidence of an administration under siege in bunker mode attempting to cut their losses and doing it (extremely awkwardly) in late August when they hope no one will notice.

Getting rid of Rove and Alberto has been the culmination of the slow investigative progress that Glenn has been promoting here for so long. Instead of recognizing a victory, too many here are already conceding defeat.

When your team finally scores a goal it’s time to cheer, not leave the stadium in utter defeat.

The only “moral value” the modern day Republican Party recognizes is money and power. That was made clear by Michael Scanlon, former aide to Tom Delay (who still considers himself a leader of the Christian Right) and former partner of super-lobbyist Abramoff when he referred to Christian “values voters” as “the wackos.”

Here’s his direct quote from Michael Scherer’s Salon article :

"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them." The brilliance of this strategy was twofold: Not only would most voters not know about an initiative to protect Coushatta gambling revenues, but religious "wackos" could be tricked into supporting gambling at the Coushatta casino even as they thought they were opposing it.

As Scherer put it: “In plain terms, Scanlon confessed the source code of recent Republican electoral victories: target religious conservatives, distract everyone else, and then railroad through complex initiatives.”

When the “morals” mask comes off, underneath is pure, unadulterated greed for money and power, the only value truly respected by today’s Republicans.

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/11/03/abramoff/index.html

When asked about his dating history during the nearly two decades between his two marriages, Fred Thompson replied, "I was single for a long time, and, yep, I chased a lot of women," he said. "And a lot of women chased me. And those that chased me tended to catch me."

He his, in that statement, bragging about his sexual conquests outside of marriage – in effect promoting promiscuity – saying it’s all right for a “manly man” to have a lot of sex outside of marriage.

At the same time, the GOP’s “family values” program is sending a completely different message, warning about the “harmful psychological and physical effects" of sex outside marriage.

Was Fred Thompson harmed by his promiscuity? And if not, why not? And how is his bragging consistent with now promoting the exact opposite of his own behavior?

Maybe these questions should be asked to Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, who helped draft the original legislation for Bush’s "chasity" programs: "The programs simply tell them the more sex they have outside of marriage, the less will be their prospects for human happiness."

Do we want an unhappy man for President?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/18/AR2007051801681_pf.html

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,32212,00.html

But the fact that this obsequious desire -- whereby journalists seek the approval of our most powerful political operatives -- defines much of our political press is a principal factor in why we have so little real political journalism..

What Glenn is describing is, in effect, the Stockholm Syndrome for journalists – it is a survival mechanism to keep their status within the Beltway Elite Journalists Club.

The Stockholm syndrome is described as:

Victims are encouraged to develop psychological characteristics pleasing to captors: dependency, lack of initiative, inability to act, decide, think, etc…..

… the perception of their victimizers as omnipotent people help to keep victims psychologically attached to victimizers. High anxiety functions to keep victims from seeing available options. Psychophysical stress responses develop.

The Stockholm Syndrome is an emotional attachment, a bond of interdependence between captive and captor.

Our Beltway journalists are being held captive to our corporate elite and their manipulators like Rove. They’ve come to identify with them, admire them and they try to please them. However, no matter how obsequious they become, it is never enough, which cause even more anxiety and less ability to see any other option to become yet more compliant.

http://www.familyrightsassociation.com/info/stockholm/syndrome.html