Letters to the Editor

• And to what end or benefit would Bush see this man leaving to be?

  [Read the article: Can Gonzales help himself?]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  None, indeed it would be a catastrophe.

  At this stage the Bush administration is playing for delay, more time for the Justice department to remain in the control of Liberty University graduates and other morally bankrupt moralizers.

  This is really an enormously dangerous situation for Bush and his administration, which has two years left to run. The problem is that they do not control the Senate anymore, they do not have a bunch of supine water carriers like Specter (and one spitoon carrier, aka Orrin Hatch) who will wave through the nomination of another Gonzales. Worse still, the entire leadership team at Justice are in trouble -- they will all go if Gonzales goes (and Gingrich actually launched a dagger into the heart of the Whitehouse by making that point) -- hell some are already gone.

  I think a lot of commentators still do not really understand what is at issue here. The Attorney General is a uniquely powerful individual, with the ability through his staff to efffectively control the direction of the entire Federal Law enforcement operation. Now the Bush adminstration faces the need to appoint a new AG and a whole top leadership team, most of whom face Senate confirmation. They cannot appoint another Gonzalez; at most they might just get to appoint a Republican, but it will have to be someone who is not seen as Bush's craven tool, someone who is independent and respected for his or her integrity, someone who might actually DO THE JOB, someone who will not nominate or even employ Republican hacks.

  Worse still, while the remaining US Attorneys may have toed the Republican line, the writing is on the wall for the Texas jackasses, the bible thumpers and the neocons -- everyone with any career ambition (and these are not stupid people) are trying to scrape off the fellow-traveler tag (by the way it is hilarious to have Republican lobbyists sidle up to me and say sotto voce that they were really not into that "partisan stuff.")

  Basically, if there is:

  * a new AG;

  * with a new staff,

  * and an environment where political retaliation by the Bushites is no longer feasible,

  * and indeed Republicans all over the place who want to be viable after the obviously

  coming (at least extreme) Republican collapse needs, who therefore need not only to

  distance themselves, but show a trace of integrity;

  And this amounts to a profound OH SHIT moment for the White House. If you combine an relatively independent DoJ with the House and Senate controlled by the Democrats and a full ability to investigate, and almost two years of Bush appointees still on office to investigate, not to mention Bush and Cheney, and 6+ years of conduct to be wahsed in 1/3 of the usual time, and it is an unprecedented ************ ********** ******* disaster.

  Permalink Monday, April 9, 2007 09:55 AM