Alberto Gonzales is a stand-up...comedian

[Zkribbler]

Did anyone see his performance during the press conference yesterday? He did a great deadpan.

Remember, his people went to Congress and testified under oath that there was no White House involvment in the decision to terminate 8 U.S. Attorneys. But now, e-mails have leaked, showing 2 years of White House involvement. Gonzales himself fought off an attempt to get rid of all U.S. attorneys and replace them with Bush appointees.

At the press conference, Gonzales stated that he was distressed to learn that Congress had been given "incomplete" facts. I guess "no" when the answer is "yes" is an incomplete fact.

He stated he took full responsiblity, but said he would not resign. He's probably relying upon the well established Bush tradition that screw ups and wrong doings have no consequences.

[EyesOfNight]

Does anyone remember when Clinton had ALL the US attorneys fired? Anyone? Ok, go back to Apolyton land.

[Zkribbler]

Did Clinton lie about whether he terminated them or why they were being terminated?

Here, several of the prosecutors said they were canned after receiving political pressure from Republican bigwigs to investigate cases of supposed voter fraud by Democrats. Using the U.S. Attorneys Office to target your political opponents is not a good thing.

[EyesOfNight]

Everyone knows that Democrats engage in rampant voter fraud. I don't see any reason not to go after it.

[Ramo]

Department of Injustice

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 9, 2007

For those of us living in the Garden State, the growing scandal over the firing of federal prosecutors immediately brought to mind the subpoenas that Chris Christie, the former Bush “Pioneer” who is now the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, issued two months before the 2006 election — and the way news of the subpoenas was quickly leaked to local news media.

The subpoenas were issued in connection with allegations of corruption on the part of Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat who seemed to be facing a close race at the time. Those allegations appeared, on their face, to be convoluted and unconvincing, and Mr. Menendez claimed that both the investigation and the leaks were politically motivated.

Mr. Christie’s actions might have been all aboveboard. But given what we’ve learned about the pressure placed on federal prosecutors to pursue dubious investigations of Democrats, Mr. Menendez’s claims of persecution now seem quite plausible.

In fact, it’s becoming clear that the politicization of the Justice Department was a key component of the Bush administration’s attempt to create a permanent Republican lock on power. Bear in mind that if Mr. Menendez had lost, the G.O.P. would still control the Senate.

For now, the nation’s focus is on the eight federal prosecutors fired by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. In January, Mr. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee, under oath, that he “would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney for political reasons.” But it’s already clear that he did indeed dismiss all eight prosecutors for political reasons — some because they wouldn’t use their offices to provide electoral help to the G.O.P., and the others probably because they refused to soft-pedal investigations of corrupt Republicans.

In the last few days we’ve also learned that Republican members of Congress called prosecutors to pressure them on politically charged cases, even though doing so seems unethical and possibly illegal.

The bigger scandal, however, almost surely involves prosecutors still in office. The Gonzales Eight were fired because they wouldn’t go along with the Bush administration’s politicization of justice. But statistical evidence suggests that many other prosecutors decided to protect their jobs or further their careers by doing what the administration wanted them to do: harass Democrats while turning a blind eye to Republican malfeasance.

Donald Shields and John Cragan, two professors of communication, have compiled a database of investigations and/or indictments of candidates and elected officials by U.S. attorneys since the Bush administration came to power. Of the 375 cases they identified, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans, and 298 involved Democrats. The main source of this partisan tilt was a huge disparity in investigations of local politicians, in which Democrats were seven times as likely as Republicans to face Justice Department scrutiny.

How can this have been happening without a national uproar? The authors explain: “We believe that this tremendous disparity is politically motivated and it occurs because the local (non-statewide and non-Congressional) investigations occur under the radar of a diligent national press. Each instance is treated by a local beat reporter as an isolated case that is only of local interest.”

And let’s not forget that Karl Rove’s candidates have a history of benefiting from conveniently timed federal investigations. Last year Molly Ivins reminded her readers of a curious pattern during Mr. Rove’s time in Texas: “In election years, there always seemed to be an F.B.I. investigation of some sitting Democrat either announced or leaked to the press. After the election was over, the allegations often vanished.”

Fortunately, Mr. Rove’s smear-and-fear tactics fell short last November. I say fortunately, because without Democrats in control of Congress, able to hold hearings and issue subpoenas, the prosecutor purge would probably have become yet another suppressed Bush-era scandal — a huge abuse of power that somehow never became front-page news.

Before the midterm election, I wrote that what the election was really about could be summed up in two words: subpoena power. Well, the Democrats now have that power, and the hearings on the prosecutor purge look like the shape of things to come.

In the months ahead, we’ll hear a lot about what’s really been going on these past six years. And I predict that we’ll learn about abuses of power that would have made Richard Nixon green with envy.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Drixnak
Does anyone remember when Clinton had ALL the US attorneys fired? Anyone? Ok, go back to Apolyton land.

Woot! Only 1 response until Clinton was irrelevantly mentioned!

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Drixnak
Everyone knows that Democrats engage in rampant voter fraud. I don't see any reason not to go after it.

Yes. Everyone knows that.

This guy is a classic!

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by DaShi
Everyone knows that Democrats engage in rampant voter fraud. I don't see any reason not to go after it.

I don't know that. Got any examples?

BTW: Was there any investigation as to why Blacks were systematically mislabled as felons in the 2000 election in Florida.

Any response to the PAUL KRUGMAN article which claims Democrats were investigated by the Bush Justice Department seven times more often that Republicans?

[DaShi]

Z, watch your editing.

[Ninot]

This Drixnak guy is fun. A breath of fresh air and all that jazz.

[DaShi]

I agree. He's just what this forum needs.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Re: Alberto Gonzales is a stand-up...comedian

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Did anyone see his performance during the press conference yesterday? He did a great deadpan.

Remember, his people went to Congress and testified under oath that there was no White House involvment in the decision to terminate 8 U.S. Attorneys. But now, e-mails have leaked, showing 2 years of White House involvement.

So he's committed perjury. I can't remember if cabinet officials are impeachable, but he's surely punishable in some way, and removeable. Time to see if the new Congress has any teeth at all...

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Any response to the PAUL KRUGMAN article which claims Democrats were investigated by the Bush Justice Department seven times more often that Republicans?

They commit more crimes?

[Ninot]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Any response to the PAUL KRUGMAN article which claims Democrats were investigated by the Bush Justice Department seven times more often that Republicans?

OOOH! I know why. It's because there are seven times more blacks amongst the Democrats [/Chris Rock]

[Bosh]

OK, firing US Attorneys en masse at the beginning of an administration is SOP. Reagan did it, Clinton did it, pretty normal.

Sneaking a provision into the reauthorization of the patriot act that lets you appoint US Attorneys without any confirmation process, ignoring standard defernce to local Senators, putting pressure on US Attorneys to convene grand jurys for voter fraud where no evidence exists of wrong doing, lying about your reasons for doing so and axing the US attorney (Lam) who blew open the biggest corruption case in YEARS and was investigating corruption in the CIA, congress and defense contractors handing out hookers like party favors is NOT SOP.