Gonzales = Richardson Ruckelshaus Bork
Josh Marshall, who deserves endless kudos for being on this story--hard--from the beginning, about fired US attorney Carol Lam, the woman who brought down Duke Cunningham just as a start:
What people tend to overlook is that for most White House's a US attorney involved in such a politically charged and ground-breaking corruption probe would have been untouchable, even if she'd run her office like a madhouse and was offering free twinkies to every illegal who made it across the border. Indeed, when you view the whole context you see that the idea she was fired for immigration enforcement is just laughable on its face. No decision about her tenure could be made without the main issue being that investigation. It's like hearing that Pat Fitzgerald was fired as Plamegate prosecutor for poor deportment or because he was running up too many air miles flying back and forth from Chicago.
Lam's investigation (and allied ones her probe spawned) were uncovering a) serious criminal wrongdoing by major Republican power players on Capitol Hill, b) corruption at the CIA -- which reached back to the Hill, c) and as yet still largely hidden corrupt dealings at the heart of the intelligence operations in the Rumsfeld Pentagon.
Nothing matters unless the investigation gets to the heart of what happened there.
This story is one of those it's hard to write about as a blogger in Santa Barbara as I just don't know enough and am too far from the action. That said, it sure stinks enough that I can miss the unholy odor emanating all the way from Washington D.C. to our sunny shore and sure it reminds me of the Saturday Night Massacre (ok, what I've read about it--it didn't make much sense to me when I was 10). The good news is we'll get a press conference when Bush says, "I'm not a crook," and he'll sound even more pathetic and whiny than Nixon. The better news is he will have to resign in disgrace at some point.
What people tend to overlook is that for most White House's a US attorney involved in such a politically charged and ground-breaking corruption probe would have been untouchable, even if she'd run her office like a madhouse and was offering free twinkies to every illegal who made it across the border. Indeed, when you view the whole context you see that the idea she was fired for immigration enforcement is just laughable on its face. No decision about her tenure could be made without the main issue being that investigation. It's like hearing that Pat Fitzgerald was fired as Plamegate prosecutor for poor deportment or because he was running up too many air miles flying back and forth from Chicago.
Lam's investigation (and allied ones her probe spawned) were uncovering a) serious criminal wrongdoing by major Republican power players on Capitol Hill, b) corruption at the CIA -- which reached back to the Hill, c) and as yet still largely hidden corrupt dealings at the heart of the intelligence operations in the Rumsfeld Pentagon.
Nothing matters unless the investigation gets to the heart of what happened there.
This story is one of those it's hard to write about as a blogger in Santa Barbara as I just don't know enough and am too far from the action. That said, it sure stinks enough that I can miss the unholy odor emanating all the way from Washington D.C. to our sunny shore and sure it reminds me of the Saturday Night Massacre (ok, what I've read about it--it didn't make much sense to me when I was 10). The good news is we'll get a press conference when Bush says, "I'm not a crook," and he'll sound even more pathetic and whiny than Nixon. The better news is he will have to resign in disgrace at some point.
Labels: politics, stinks, US attorneys
posted by George at 10:41 PM
4 Comments:
Interesting comparison. Hadn't thought of it. And Gonzo'd better be ready for a tough time of it in 14 years when he's nominated for SCOTUS.
(Hey, Miers was nominated, why not Gonzo?)
Do I detect a note of optimism that any of these right-to-rule Republicans will ever be held accountable by anyone but bloggers?
I guess so...you can decide if my mojito glass is half full or half empty.
The authorization for Independent Counsel expired.
Meanwhile, a temporary tax on telephone calls instituted to fund the Spanish American war lasted 108 years. (The Spanish-American War itself lasted 113 days, in 1898).
Sometimes I think I might be too cynical. Then I take a closer look at our government, and I realize I'm really not nearly cynical enough.
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