A Scandal That Keeps Growing (NYT editorial re: Gonzales)

Published: May 6, 2007

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales declared recently, while batting down bipartisan calls for him to resign, that he had many things to do and “can’t just be focused on the U.S. attorneys situation.” It’s not surprising that Mr. Gonzales wants to change the subject. At best, the firing of eight United States attorneys, most of them highly respected, is an example of such profound incompetence that it should cost Mr. Gonzales his job. At worst, it was a political purge followed by a cover-up. In either case, the scandal is only getting bigger and more disturbing.

New reports of possible malfeasance keep coming fast and furious. They all seem to make it more likely than ever that the firings were part of an attempt to turn the Justice Department into a partisan political operation. There is, to start, the very strong appearance that United States attorneys were fired because they were investigating powerful Republicans or refused to bring baseless charges against Democrats. There is reason to believe that Carol Lam of San Diego, who put Randy Cunningham, the former Republican congressman, in jail, and Paul Charlton of Arizona, who was investigating Representative Rick Renzi, among others, were fired simply for their nonpartisan pursuit of justice.

The Justice Department opened an internal investigation last week into whether Monica Goodling, a former senior adviser to Mr. Gonzales, applied a political screen to applicants for assistant United States attorney positions. That kind of political test would violate department policy, and possibly the law. Ms. Goodling, who has invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, was also a key player in the United States attorney firings.

The National Journal brought to light an “internal order” in which Mr. Gonzales gave Ms. Goodling and his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, the power to hire and fire many of the department’s top officials. His willingness to hand this authority off to two young, highly political staff members is further evidence that partisanship and not professionalism was the driving force in hiring and firing. ~snip~

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/opinion/06sun1.html

into a political organization. It's the GSA and I suspect other agencies as well--my guess is the whole Federal Govt. under Rove's command, that is being transformed. This is more widespread than just the Justice Dept.--Rove's trying to have as many people as he can not do the job they were assigned to but act as political hacks for the RNC.

-- except perhaps inadvertently -- to benefit the people, the nation as a whole, or anyoe other than themselves alone. They have always intended to (1) accumulate more power, (2) enrich and reward their friends and patrons, (3) humiliate, snub and/or destroy their enemies (aka: people who would political opponents in others' eyes).

There simply IS no interest on the part of any of them in doing anything for the good of the people or the nation as a whole, or simply for the right reasons. Nothing matters but self-aggrandizement -- first and foremost and only.

Anyone care to try to prove me wrong?

lie and cheat and steal. . .And that they do it at every opportunity.

If you vote for a Republican, you have blood on your hands. This is becoming common knowledge, conventional wisdom. And this notion will just get more and more convincing every month that Congressional Repugs don't do something about it.

I would laugh except for the death and damage that will occur during their last few months in power.

scandal under every rock the Dems turn over. The Bush administration has corrupted every aspect of government, and it's going to take years to counter some of the damage they've done. Whoever is our next president has huge challenges ahead of him or her, and what I'd love to see is a Dem president, plus both houses of Congress.

I know that the past years of one party rule have led up to the mess we're in now, but we need to be constantly applying pressure on our party to get this nightmare over.

This generation of Republican politicians sure do seem to have an affinity for greed and graft. There have always been free-lancers in both Partys that enriched themselves from their political position in Washington. But I've never seen it so pervasive as I see it now in the Greedy Oil Party. I think it has gotten to a point where it's a rather simple quid-pro-quo...deliver your vote to the Party and we will let you do anything you can get away with. In fact, I really don't think they can run honest people with integrity. They need compromised candidates (or blackmail-able ones) to continue to operate. The fact that they are willing to commit election fraud should tell us that the days of principles in this Party are over. They need to steal elections because they know what lays in store should they lose control.

What they've done this past 6-1/2 years is breathtaking in the scale of economic transfer of our Treasury to their interests. This next 18 months are going to be mighty interesting. The legal problems and criminal exposures are growing daily and I sense that the American people will decisively drive a stake through the heart of the Party carcass in 2008, the combined efforts of the mainstream media to give them cover, notwithstanding.

Assuming that we can overcome election fraud by sheer numbers, oversight, and scrunity....we cannot have a rerun of 1992 when Clinton let these criminals off the hook , "for the sake of the country". This time, we have to go for the jugular and take every one of these bastards out. We cannot let this cancer on our country go into remission and come back to life a decade later, stronger and more deadly than before.

"This time, we have to go for the jugular and take every one of these bastards out. We cannot let this cancer on our country go into remission and come back to life a decade later, stronger and more deadly than before."

I find myself questioning the character & integrity of those I know who are still republicans. I am still angry at those who voted for the moran twice. After four years they could not see this administration for what it really is?

As you point out, we've always had greedy and psychopathic free-lancers in both parties and probably always will. The difference now is that the current bunch of criminals is an ORGANIZED crime syndicate.

& Churchill Jr.'s giving the country the finger and worse...:puke: :wtf:

as soon as possible - they should never have been allowed to corrupt our entire government - but all of the lapdog press and the syncophantic congress bears responsibility for this.

:grr:

to finally bring everyone together about the government we've allowed to steal elections.

And the economic collapse is coming, and it's going to be really ugly. We've been violated in every way possible by the republicans, and it's going to literally be the DEATH of millions of Americans, and the horrible suffering of many millions more.

It's truly a shame that it will have to come to this for people to realize just what kind of HUGE responsibility a Democratic Republic places on people. Unfortunately, the majority of our people have taken their free ride on the backs of us liberals who have fought hard for every good thing this country has ever produced FOR THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE.

WE (liberals) are the SOLDIERS WHO HAVE BEEN SPAT UPON.

:kick::kick::kick:

.....In her statement, Ms. Lam said that she was given just weeks to pack up, and that Justice Department officials told her that her dismissal came “from the very highest levels of the government.”

It is long past time for President Bush to fire Mr. Gonzales. But Congress, especially the Republicans who have dared confront the White House on this issue, should not be satisfied with that. There are strong indications that the purge was ordered out of the White House, involving at the very least the former counsel, Harriet Miers, and Karl Rove.

It is the duty of Congress to compel them and other officials to finally tell the truth to the American people.