Turkey Pardons Turkey

It's sad really, The Decider spares a turkey the usual sentence of the season, while allowing two U.S. Border Agents to remain wrongfully imprisoned.... even though an enraged public has been clamoring for their pardons.

At least the Mexican drug smuggler the agents were trying to apprehend, Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, is finally under arrest, and now facing charges for smuggling drugs into our country numerous times.... even during the agents' trial using the immunity border pass issued to him by U.S. Attorney Sutton for his testimony against the agents.

So, until the agents' appeal is heard, and this travesty is overturned, remember these few things to be thankful for:

"Snowflake" Defense Secretary Rummy got the axe.

Political manipulator Rove flew The Decider's coop.

Attorney General Gonzo no longer gobble-gobbles for his White House dinner.

And, be especially thankful that starting next January we set into motion the means to rid ourselves of the "foul" Bush.

Wishing all a hopeful Thanksgiving.

The Days of our Discontent....

A snapshot of the week ahead.... former congressman Henry Hyde (R-IL) will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom this morning. Perhaps in recognition of his relentless crusade against women's right to choose, or, as the House of Representatives chief prosecutor in President Clinton's impeachment proceedings over his adulterous affair with a White House intern.

Of course....hypocrisy, thy name is GOP..... during the Clinton witch hunt Hyde admitted to Salon magazine in 1998 that he had carried on a five-year sexual relationship with a much younger married woman that ended when Hyde's wife found out about it.

And.... tomorrow morning the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the confirmation of Michael Mukasey, The Decider's nominee for attorney general. With spineless Democrats like Dianne Feinstein (CA) and Charles Schumer (NY) giving the nod to Mukasey, it seems assured he'll gain the approval of the committee and the full Senate later this month. So, we'll have another attorney general who can't say if waterboarding torture is illegal.... it's still what the meaning of is, is.

Mukasey should have asked Evan Wallach, he explains it all in his piece today "Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime." (WaPo)

He reminds us that after "World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war." Of course, under the Bush administration, the days of national moral behavior are just a memory .... perverted by a flurry of The Decider's directives and his last political-enabler, attorney general Alberto Gonzales.

Looks like this isn't the week that will restore our tattered national honor.

Friends of George Flee....

There is an echo in the White House these days.... because gone to "spend more time with their families...." are:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
Joint Chief of Staffs Chairman Peter Pace
White House Senior Political Advisor Karl Rove
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow
White House Counselor Don Bartlett
White House Budget Director Rob Portman
White House Counsel Harriet Miers
White House Political Director Sara Taylor
Justice Department White House Liaison Monica Goodling
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

In Congress, the latest GOP heavy-hitters announcing retirement....

Sen. John Warner (VA)
Sen. Dennis Hastert (IL)
Rep. Deborah Pryce (OH)

And, today after a tumultuous week during which wide-stance bathroom habits were given wide media coverage....

Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) again made headlines..... "Senator Craig Announces Resignation."

Caught in a sting operation by an undercover officer investigating "lewd conduct" in a bathroom of the Minneapolis airport.... and, after pleading guilty.... gay-bashing conservative poster-boy Craig defensively declared in a news conference "I'm not gay."

Which really isn't the point. Conduct unbecoming a U. S. Senator is. This GOP embarrassment will be history by the end of the month.

So..... a lonely Bush is left peering out of his oval office window, wondering how it is things went so quickly from a lame-duck to a lone-duck presidency.

Bush's Muddy Mess

Yesterday, President Bush mourned the resignation of Attorney General Gonzales, charging that Gonzales's... "good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons." (WaPo)

So, let's review why it was past time for Gonzales to go.

"There have been no verified civil liberties abuses in the four years of the act's existence." December 15, 2005, op-ed piece by Gonzales, urging Congress to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act.

FACT: Internal FBI documents show that Gonzales had been informed of at least a half-dozen instances of legal or procedural violations of the Patriot Act. In May 2007, Gonzales's former deputy, James B. Comey, disclosed that he and several colleagues had concluded that the program was so illegal that he and other officials at Justice and the FBI were ready to resign unless it was altered.

"There has not been any serious disagreement, including -- and I think this is accurate -- there's not been any serious disagreement about the program that the president has confirmed." Gonzales, February 6, 2006, Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency.

FACT: There was a nighttime showdown over the program in March 2004 in the hospital room of then Attorney General Ashcroft.... Gonzales, as White House counsel, tried to get an ill and "barely articulate" Ashcroft to certify that the program was legal.

"We never had any intent to ask anything of him if we did not feel that he was competent." Gonzales, July 24, 2007, Senate testimony about the visit to Ashcroft's hospital room.

"I have not been involved, was not involved in the deliberations over whether or not U.S. attorneys should resign." Gonzales, March 26, 2007, interview on "NBC" Nightly News.

FACT: Three days later, Gonzales's former chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, testified that he had conferred with Gonzales at least five times about the plan to remove federal prosecutors and that Gonzales had attended the final meeting on the topic.

"I haven't talked to witnesses because of the fact that I haven't wanted to interfere with this investigation and department investigations." Gonzales, April 19, 2007, Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the U.S. attorney dismissals.

FACT: Gonzales's former senior counselor, Monica Goodling, testified before Congress that in early April, Gonzales ..."laid out for me his general recollection" of the "process regarding the replacement of the U.S. attorneys... and then he asked me if he thought - if I had any reaction to his iteration.... I did not know if it was appropriate for us to both be discussing our recollections of what happened...."

"I don't recall - I don't recall exactly when the decision - I made the decision." Gonzales, April 19 Senate Judiciary hearing on the firings, at which Gonzales said nearly 70 times that he did not know, could not recall or was unsure about various information.

So...although Gonzales repeatedly insisted.... 70 times.... that he could not recall key events in the prosecutor dismissals including a meeting he held with Bush and adviser Karl Rove..... and, although Gonzales testified that there were no internal Justice Department disagreements over a domestic surveillance program, even though top Justice and FBI officials had judged it illegal and threatened to resign unless it was altered.... it was all just dirty politics according to Bush.

Even the conservative National Review in March said of Gonzales, "We have never seen evidence that he has a fine legal mind, good judgment, or managerial ability.... Nor has his conduct at any stage of this controversy gained our confidence." (WaPo)

Gonzales legacy will be that he lied before Congress, interpreted the law to match his boss's political wishes and the White House perception that the Constitution gives the president much more authority than Congress or the judiciary.

He contended that international treaties like the spurned Geneva Convention are subject to "situational" adherence, and signed off on harsh treatment of U.S. detainees. He crafted legal memos that allowed for torture and authorized military tribunals that the Supreme Court later ruled weren't legally authorized, and defended transfers of detainees to harsh interrogation nations.

And, lest we forget, it was Gonzales's U.S. attorney who prosecuted and imprisoned two border agents trying to apprehend a drug runner from Mexico.... giving the drug smuggler immunity to testify against the agents.

A perversion of justice Bush refuses to overturn, although he commuted the sentence of VP Cheney's chief of staff, "Scooter" Libby even before Libby had served a day of his sentence for what passes at the White House as business as usual.... perjury and obstruction of justice.

Gonzales excuses lawbreaking and violent Latino gang members as "individuals who have run into a spell of tough luck," and approved immigration reform legislation that included putting them on the fast track to citizenship on their word that they had renounced gang activity.

While our president mourns the loss of his legal political enabler Gonzales.... we mourn that Bush's Justice Department, the safeguards of our Constitution and the rule of law lay broken at his feet.... trampled into the mud by the actions of his own administration.

At Last... Bedtime for Gonzo

The resignation of our disgraced Attorney General Gonzales feels like a hollow victory.... just like it will feel when we at last rid ourselves of The Decider and the rest of his toxic administration. Because, even with their leave taking, the destruction they wrought will remain far, far into the future....

.... The politicizing of the law. The breaking down of Constitutional safeguards. The distrust of government. The sullying of our reputation around the world. The backbreaking debt. The unbridled rise of corporate influence and corruption. The gutting of our manufacturing base. The weakening of the middle class. The trashing of our the environment.... and the reckless, unwinnable, deadly, costly war in Iraq.

The thought most expressed about the "legacy" of this administration is, "will our country survive?"

No, there's no joy in Gonzo's departure. Especially when the first name mentioned for his replacement is the head of the department as discredited as Justice, Michael Chertoff, who heads the bloatedly-inept political creation of this administration, the Department of Homeland Security.

As the old saying goes, you can tell a lot about a person by his friends, or in the case of a president, by those he trusts and with whom he surrounds himself. The Decider's first-named ally was Vice President Cheney, the demented wizard behind the curtain. The cabal surrounding the deadly duo allowed no justice to escape their power-grabbing black hole.

Thus Gonzo, as the most powerful law enforcer in the country, was the perfect tool for this administration, placing his loyalty to the White House and their political agenda above and beyond the very law he took an oath to uphold, and was himself the object of congressional investigations into misconduct.

Goodbye Gonzo. We desperately hope we'll never see your like again.

The Contemptable White House

We're finding out that the Justice Department evidently works best at night.

We already know about the nighttime bedside visit to the very ill attorney general, now we hear of another after-dark arm twisting... "U.S. Attorney Became Target."

"John L. Brownlee, the U.S. attorney in Roanoke, testified that he was at home the evening of Oct. 24 when he received the call on his cellphone from Michael J. Elston, then chief of staff to the deputy attorney general and one of the Justice aides involved in the removal of nine U.S. attorneys last year." (WaPo)

This wasn't a social call. It was the night before the government secured a plea of "guilty" from Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of the addictive painkiller OxyContin "that was the direct or partial cause of 146 deaths in 2000 and 2001 and possibly 318 others during that period."

Elston, at the behest of the drugmaker, urged Brownlee to "slow down."

To his credit, Brownlee didn't slow down.... and, eight days later Brownlee's name appeared on a list compiled by Elston of prosecutors that officials suggested be fired.

You can be sure Attorney General Gonzales if asked about this episode will don his baby-seal-being-clubbed face and say he didn't know this was going on in his Justice Department.

But, as we are starting to find out, someone does know what is going on.

The prince of darkness, Vice President Cheney.

When Gonzo was queried by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) about who sent him on the nighttime visit Ashcroft's bedside, he would only respond he was "acting on behalf of the president".... a catchall phrase meaning he wouldn't say.

But, according to The New York Times op ed piece of July 29, when Gonzales was still the White House counsel and the Justice Department refused to endorse a continuation of the wiretapping program because it was illegal, that..... "Unwilling to accept that conclusion, Vice President Dick Cheney sent Mr. Gonzales and another official to Mr. Ashcroft's hospital room to get him to approve the wiretapping."

There it is, flat out. Dirty Dick behind the devious trick.

When asked by Larry King two nights later about the NY Times editorial and his involvement in hospitalgate, Cheney replied.... "I don't recall....."

We need to have a Letterman list of ways the White House gets around accountability.... "executive privilege" would be high on the list, followed by "I don't recall."

While Gonzo has proven himself to be the White House political lackey, and The Decider a reckless punk using the country as his fiefdom.... the real black hand propelling events is Dirty Dick. Congress needs to impeach this lawless White House crew.... starting with the chief instigator and manipulator.... Cheney.

Gonzo's Just the Messenger

The GOP loudly derided then President Clinton's testimony surrounding his Monicagate sexcapade when he famously parsed.... "It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is."

What was at stake with this crafty argument?.... no laws had been broken, no rights had been impinged, no monies or lives had been squandered. He was trying to avoid an inflamed GOP impeachment posse trying to run down a president they hated.... because he was a straying husband.

Let's compare that voyeuristic clash with the current, to be kind, "parsing" of Attorney General Gonzales in testimony revolving around the Bush administration's invasion of our basic rights under the Constitution.

According to Ruth Marcus in "Short of Perjury," Gonzo in Senate testimony "dissembled," and "misled" with "linguistic evasion" about a Justice Department and White House dispute over the DOJ's denial for the continuation of a surveillance program.

But she doesn't think he actually "lied."

Quoting from the New York Times regarding Gonzo's testimony in February 2006 about his nighttime visit to Ashcroft, in pain and on medication, compared to his testimony of last week.... "If the dispute chiefly involved data mining, rather than eavesdropping, Mr. Gonzales' defenders may maintain that his narrowly crafted answers, while legalistic, were technically correct."

Actually, it all boils down to a Clintonian "what "program" the program is."

The Democratic-led Congress, rather than gathering their own posse to run Gonzo to ground over this parsing, should perhaps "concentrate on determining what the administration did - and under what claimed legal authority - that produced the hospital room showdown."

Marcus makes a good point.... Gonzo is just the decoy, the lawbreaking gang leaders hang out in the White House.

Making It Up As He Goes...

Sometimes it's better to just let a person's own words make the case.... which in this instance is the testimony of Attorney General Gonzales before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) was asking Gonzales about the night in 2004 when he showed up at the hospital bedside of his predecessor, John Ashcroft, to try to get him to overrule his deputy, James Comey, and reauthorize Bush's secret program of warrantless electronic eavesdropping that the Justice Department had concluded as constituted was illegal.

In "Bedtime for Gonzo," by columnist Eugene Robinson, he recounts Gonzales' weaselly explanation to the Committee "for why he would think it appropriate to buttonhole a sick man in his hospital room, regardless of the issue." (WaPo)

"There are no rules governing whether or not General Ashcroft can decide 'I'm feeling well enough to make this decision,' " Gonzo said. When Specter pointed out that Ashcroft had already turned his powers over to Comey, Gonzo replied, "And he could always reclaim it. There are no rules."

"While he was in the hospital under sedation?" Specter interrupted, before giving up on getting a straight answer.

When Gonzales was pressed by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on who sent him on that Mafia-movie errand to the hospital, all this friend of George would say was that the visit was "on behalf of the president of the United States."

Oh yes, King George would definitely approve of such tactics. Gonzales' testimony sums up the philosophy of the Bush administration.... "There are no rules".... the rules are whatever they say they are.

Send Gonzales Packing

We're rooting for Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) leading a group of Senate Democrats calling for a special counsel for a "Gonzales Perjury Probe," and, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, Patrick Leahy (D-VT) "Senator May Seek Gonzales Perjury Probe," as they finally say about Gonzo's glaring lack of integrity in upholding his office, enough is enough. (WaPo)

No matter how Gonzo shaves the truth trying to rewrite history over his actions and testimony on the unconstitutional warrantless surveillance program and the Patriot Act.... the only outcome for Gonzo's scurrilous actions should minimally be losing his job as Attorney General.

How is it that Gonzo with his ambulance-chaser tactics, a nighttime sickbed arm twister as the then-White House Attorney, rose to become Attorney General, turning the legal system into The Decider's political playground?

How? Because the former Republican-controlled Congress rubber stamped whatever Bush mandated, and he wanted his buddy's pudgy finger on the scale of justice.

Everyone.... except the White House... even most GOP lawmakers after witnessing Gonzo's unethical performance, would breathe a sigh of relief to see him depart.

The sooner the better.

A Den of Thieves

In written testimony today, Attorney General "Sly" Gonzales has vowed to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he would stay on and "fix the problems" in his politicized Justice Department.... the fox wants to whitewash the hen house.

Of course, the real reasons are alarmingly transparent.... to continue enforcing The Decider's law- unto-himself political agenda, and give the White House a legal shield from congressional oversight.

Currently the White House is heading for a legal showdown with the House Judiciary Committee over contempt citations for chief of staff John Bolten and former counsel Harriet Miers.

They both have refused congressional demands that they testify on the U.S. Attorney firings, and Bush has invoked for them his blanket avoidance-of-accountability maneuver.... executive privilege.

As recounted in "House Panel Nears A Legal Clash With Bush Over Firings, Gonzales to Tell Senators He Will Not Quit," (WaPo) the White House arrogantly asserted last week that it will not allow the Justice Department to prosecute executive branch officials for being in contempt of Congress.

How cozy. The fox is whitewashing the hen house while the skunks are stealing the eggs.

Thanks to Congress, Bush Is Still Fiddling....

while our nation burns!... it's laws, it's moral compass, its international bridges.

In testimony before a Congressional panel on Tuesday, former Surgeon General Richard Carmona testified that the Bush administration silenced medical and scientific opinions in favor of political agendas and religious dogma.

Carmona, who served as Surgeon General from 2002 to 2006, confirmed the White House's despotic approach to implementing their agenda, they "would not let him speak on or issue reports about stem cell research, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues."

James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and several federal climate scientists have "accused the administration of muzzling them," especially on the issue of global warming. The corporate-favoring administration has trashed our forests and rescinded environmental controls.

We have witnessed the strong-arm tactics of Bush's Attorney General Gonzales who has turned the Justice Department into the political enforcement arm of the White House, trampling the Constitution and perverting the rule of law.

Now, thanks to the investigative report of Bob Woodward in WaPo today.... "CIA Said Instability Seemed 'Irreversible' ".... we just now learn that last November, CIA Director Michael Hayden told the Iraq Study Group that the inability of Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki's government "to govern seems irreversible," and Hayden could not "point to any milestone or checkpoint where we can turn this thing around."

Hayden's conclusion, "The government is unable to govern." His opinion is based on the more than 500 CIA personnel in Iraq providing intelligence and analysis.

In his appearance that very day before the study group, Bush held forth for an hour with a megalomaniac vision of "victory" in Iraq and defended Maliki's regime.... "A constitutional order is emerging," he insisted.

The Decider's opinion was based on wishful thinking.

Regardless of Bush's delusional diatribe for his costly ($12 billion a month) messianic crusade that he terms "a great ideological conflict," a sobered study group issued their recommendations.... change course in Iraq.

So, what did The Decider do.... he announced in January that he was staying the course, and sent more troops to Iraq in a "surge" to prop up that very failed Maliki government.... stubbornly and criminally continuing on a course that cost the precious lives of 700 more U.S. troops, with no end in sight.

Today, even while Bush was painting a smiley face on the pitiful report scoring the benchmarks set for Iraq, an early vote in the Senate on legislation designed to tie the president's hands in Iraq fell victim to a Republican filibuster.

Another sickening fiduciary failure by Congress.

The fact that Bush has been able to rule as a dangerous corporatist dictator is the fault of the Congressional leaders of both parties.... most especially the leadership of the Republican party.

Let's get serious about legal maneuvers like impeachment.... there isn't time. It must be accomplished by political pressure.

Our lawmakers must put aside partisanship, personal agendas and special interests and work together to shackle the hands of the corporatist cabal in the White House.

Otherwise, they will have to answer to an outraged electorate in 2008 for their complicity.

Gonzales Must Go

It's no longer a question of if Attorney General Gonzales is The Decider's political enforcer, it is now a question of degree.

The more abuses of power the now Democratically-controlled Hill uncovers, the more breathtaking the scope.... and sheer brass.... of the Justice Department's trampling of the Constitution to further The Decider's political agenda.

In "Mr. Gonzales's Inattention" (WaPo) we learn of the latest outrage on the heels of the ousting of eight U.S. attorneys for not implementing White House political vendettas. In late April 2005, Gonzales testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which was considering reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act, that "there has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse" under the Act.

Gonzales gave this testimony despite the fact, it was learned yesterday, that earlier that year "Gonzales was sent several documents.... outlining FBI mistakes or abuses concerning national security letters and other intelligence-gathering tools."

And, this year the inspector general sent another report to Gonzales about a significant increase in FBI violations in the use of national security letters.

Gonzales is the picture of innocence.... he is "surprised" about the reports, which he says he knew nothing about (the dog ate his homework); and "upset" about what was revealed in the reports.

Once again Gonzales has been caught not doing, or not wanting to do, his job.... and, misleading and obstructing congressional oversight.

Isn't it now obvious to even the most biased or partisan observer, that this White House's attitude about their Machiavellian power grab in every direction is.... catch them if you can.

And, if you do, the smirks tell you the "cops" are in their pocket.

These are your freedoms and civil rights they are stealing.... get mad!

Demand that Attorney Venal Gonzales must go!

Classify Cheney as "Arrogant"

Make it disappear......

Is this an order from Tony Soprano to his crew? In a sense.

Same mob secrecy, same ruthless response to being crossed.... the office of Vice President Cheney "has refused to comply with an executive order governing the handling of classified information for the past four years and recently tried to abolish the office that sought to enforce those rules..." (WaPo)

In 2004, when the Archives' Information Security Oversight Office tried to conduct an on-site inspection of Cheney's office to see how sensitive material was handled, they were blocked by his crew.

This January the Archives Director, William Leonard, wrote Attorney General Gonzales asking him to render a legal ruling on whether Cheney is violating the executive order. Gonzales has not replied.

Of course not, he's too busy throwing law-enforcing border agents in prison and politicizing the Justice Department.

Under this executive order, which mandates a uniform system for safeguarding government classified information, an "entity within the executive branch that comes into possession of classified information" must report each year how much it is keeping secret.

For over six years an arrogant Cheney has kept his actions from public scrutiny.... like refusing to name the industry executives who advised his energy task force, or giving up Secret Service logs showing who visits his office or official residence.... even the costs and other details about his travel.

Snarly Cheney obviously has a lot to hide. As evidenced by the conviction for perjury and obstruction of justice by his chief lieutenant, Scooter Libby, who is probably taking the fall for Cheney's misdeeds and directions.

Maybe Cheney has forgotten that he works for us.... that he can't decide which documents to withhold from our view and knowledge.

Shine a light into Cheney's murky den.

A Crisis of Confidence

The most powerful attorney in the nation, Attorney General Gonzales, reviewed his version of events surrounding the dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys with a departing senior aide who would be testifying about these events.

When the aide spilled the beans about the meeting, Gonzales' defense..... "he never attempted to influence or shape the testimony or public statements of any witness," his comments to the aide "were intended only to comfort..."

This obvious attempt to coach a witness deserves much more than a "no confidence" slap on the wrist.

After all, Gonzales has already lied under oath about this.... he told the Senate Judiciary Committee in April that he had not talked to any potential witnesses about the firings.

A letter from DOJ investigators to the Senate Judiciary Committee confirms "that the scope of our investigation does include" the matter of the meeting with Gonzales aide.

Gonzales better find himself a good attorney.

No Curtain Calls for Gonzales

"British officials said Tuesday there was 'sufficient evidence' to charge a Russian former KGB agent with murder and seek his extradition from Moscow in the sensational poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko." (WaPo)

Livinenko was an outspoken critic of Russian President Valdimir Putin, and pointed the finger of blame for his poisoning at Putin from his deathbed.

But, Moscow has already made it clear they wouldn't cooperate with any British attempt to extradite Andrei Lugovoy who met with Litvinenko for tea at a London hotel on the day he fell ill.

The timing for the British in filing these charges is curious.

Tomorrow, the G8 Justice and Interior Ministers.... from Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Canada, United Kingdom, Russia and the United States.... are meeting in Munich in advance of the G8 Summit in early June.

Ironically, the ministers will be discussing among other things "international judicial cooperation, particularly in the fields of counter-terrorism."

Surely the poisoning of Litvinenko in London by a former KGB agent using a rare and deadly isotope.... 97 percent of which is manufactured in Russia.... would qualify as terrorism. This would be the perfect opportunity to exercise "international judicial cooperation."

A Litvinenko family spokesman, Alex Goldfarb, said the British investigators "have pretty strong evidence" based on the radioactive trail.... where it came from and who was handling it.

So, will these icons of world justice meeting tomorrow demand Russia's cooperation with Britain's prosecution?

Don't hold your breath.

Not when the likes of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is the person representing law and justice for the United States at the G8 meeting.... The Decider's legal strawman who has prostituted his legal moral authority.

So, the G8 justice ministers will probably ignore the hot potato of extradition in the diplomatic confrontation between London and Moscow.

But, perhaps not all justice will be denied.

Sometime in the next two weeks the Senate is planning a vote of no confidence in Gonzales. A move The Decider has called pure "political theater."

However, if Gonzales doesn't resign after a bipartisan no confidence vote, and, The Decider doesn't fire him, the "I" word is being urged on Congress as a means of ridding us of this legal pestilence.

For Gonzales, theater it is, and the curtain will be going down.

How Low Can Gonzales Go?

Eugene Robinson reviews the skulduggery of our Attorney General in "Gonzales's Signature Moment," and Gonzales' brazen efforts to confront his predecessor on his sickbed, trying to browbeat him into signing a shady legal opinion on domestic surveillance.

It will remain an indelible stain on the White House and Gonzales that he has been the willing tool for The Decider and his Dark Prince in their assault on our Constitution. There really is no sacred wall they haven't breached.... be it the one shielding the law from politics, dividing church and state, or defining the balance of power normally shared by the executive, judicial and legislative.

We also have Gonzales to thank, undoubtedly carrying out White House marching orders, for not enforcing our immigration laws, and for going after border patrol agents trying to do their job.

It's becoming chillingly clearer each day, the Bush administration has no scruples, morals or even common decency, and Attorney General Gonzales is their willing enforcer.

The Shield of Injustice

It was impossible to watch without wincing.

Attorney Gonzales' tortuous testimony before the Senate Judiciary committee last week was compared to watching the clubbing of a baby seal. Except, Gonzales isn't a baby seal, he's a very useful White House front man, a pretend Attorney General shielding a pretend President and his political thugs.

During his testimony, Gonzales fell on his sword, taking full responsibility for the firing of eight U.S. attorneys while at the same time professing complete ignorance of the reasons for their dismissal.

This flimflamming so impressed "Heck of a job Brownie" Bush that he rushed to declare that Gonzales' performance had "increased my confidence in his ability to do the job."

With each layer of corruption uncovered by the now Democratically-controlled Congressional oversight committees, we find that the national interest, and the law, take a back seat to the White House agenda.... all politics, all of the time.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has turned over the White House rock of the private briefings on Republican candidates during the last midterm election.

Senior officials in at least 15 government agencies were subjected to White House presentations on how they could affect election outcomes.... a violation of the Hatch Act forbidding political pressures meant to influence the outcome of elections.

In the briefing to the General Services Administration.... "conducted like all others by a deputy to chief White House political adviser Karl Rove.... two slides were presented showing 20 House Democrats targeted for defeat and several dozen vulnerable Republicans."

This prompted the GSA administrator to ask how GSA projects could be used to help "our candidates," according to half a dozen witnesses.

The abuse-of-power odor emanating from the White House flows over our nation like a backed up sewer. Even a sacrificing Gonzales can't mask the stench forever.

Bush Power Failures

The Decider derided Bill Clinton for his personal behavior, and promised to bring a new moral tone to the White House.

What a joke.

The latest chapter of the Bush administration's ongoing trashing of our country and government are the "lost" Karl Rove emails sought by Congress in various abuse of power investigations. We're talking about at least four years' worth of missing emails diverted to the Republican National Committee account that the White House has admitted was an improper use of a political email account to conduct official business.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, in an angry speech on the Senate floor accused the White House of lying about the matter..... "You can't erase emails, not today.... They've gone through too many servers. Those emails are there-- they just don't want to produce them. It's like the infamous 18-minute gap in the Nixon White House tapes."

Then there is the sorry spectacle of our Attorney General Alberto Gonzales rehearsing for weeks about his "story" before appearing before a congressional committee next Tuesday regarding firing of U.S. attorneys and other abuses of his office.

Even though going through mock testimony sessions lasting up to five hours a day, an insider admits that Gonzales still can't get his story straight. The White House is stonewalling demands by Congress for testimony and records related to the prosecutor firings. The Bushies are insisting that Rove and other aides be interviewed privately, without a transcript and not under oath. An aide to Gonzales has refused to testify, taking 5th amendment protection to avoid self-incrimination.

The latest revelation of a Bush insider's high moral tone comes by way former under secretary of defense, Paul Wolfowitz.... a manipulator of intelligence before the invasion of Iraq.

In 2005 he was awarded the presidency of the World Bank where Wolfowitz now admits he made a "mistake" by personally orchestrating a high-paying job and guaranteed promotions for a bank employee with whom he is romantically involved. His 200 staffers are so taken with him that they began hissing, booing and chanting "Resign.... Resign" when he attempted to address them after they angrily demanded his resignation.

This is our morally bankrupt Bush administration, hiding behind a smokescreen of religion and patriotism, mouthing a moralism totally disconnected from their scurrilous actions.

Ill Winds....

When a country "legalizes" and codifies the use of torture, the rule-of-law flies out the window along with a country's moral bearings.

We have Attorney General Gonzales to thank for this abomination, he wrote the torture guidelines memo for The Decider.

Because of these expanded-use of torture guidelines, confessions can reasonably be denied, as in the case of an al-Qaeda "Detainee Alleges Abuse in CIA Prison."

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who was in CIA custody for more than four years, alleged before a military tribunal on March 14 that his American captors tortured him into making false confessions about terrorist attacks in the Middle East.

The torture of detainees, aside from being despicable morally, not only makes such confessions suspect, it opens the door for similar harsh treatment of our, and our allies, captured soldiers.

The "confessions" of the 15 British sailors currently being held by Iran is a sad case in point. The confessions are not believable, but the worry is, how were they obtained. And, will they be used against them in a show trial.

In the continuing standoff, Iran is turning up the heat after initially promising to release the lone female captive and then reneging on that promise.... "Iranian Official: Sailors May Be Tried."

It is the agenda of President Bush that has brought us to this tit-for-tat pass .... by using the law as a political tool. Attorney General Gonzales is the instrument this administration uses to pervert the law and moral conduct to fit their agenda..... and, it's more than just the torture memo.

Just ask the 8 U.S. Attorneys who were fired for political reasons, many during investigations of which the White House disapproved.

Just ask the two border patrol agents who are facing long prison terms for going after a drug smuggler while that drug smuggler not only received the protection of our law, but goes free.

Bush's Attorney General excuses lawbreaking, drug-pushing and violent Latino illegal immigrant gangs as "individuals who have run into a spell of tough luck." (CNN)

Actually, is our country's legal system and moral code that have run into a spell of tough luck.... a fetid gale of corruption that blew in with the Bush administration and lay waste to our moral authority. The world will reap the whirlwind.

Roll the FOG Out

It's about time for Attorney General Gonzales to roll-out the Bush swan-song.... he "needs to spend more time with his family." After all, the last thing his boss needs is another hot potato in his lid-popping political stew.

Gonzales is one of the Bushies whose qualifications for office are FOG.... Friends of George. If ever there was an apt acronym, it is FOG. The behavioral concept of fogging is to deflect criticism and scrutiny by letting someone vent, and then giving a seemingly agreeable, but evasive, response.

FOG fogging example: Congress: "Gonzales, you know that you lied to us about your involvement in the firing of the eight U.S. Attorneys, we now know there was a meeting in your office about the firings and you signed off on them." Gonzales: "You're right, there was a meeting but the deliberations were over. I never participated in the deliberations"

The statement is then followed by obliging media hacks blaring.... "Gonzales played no role in U.S. Attorney firings." Yep, that's how it works. Now you know.

Underlings who aren't FOG appointments have to take a different tack. The Fifth.

Monica Goodling, Gonzales's senior counselor, is refusing to testify before the Senate about the firings, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Remember, we're talking about the Department of Justice here. This means a senior aide to the nation's top law enforcement official is refusing to testify because she might implicate herself in a crime!

We can only hope that Gonzales decides soon that his family needs him. But too many other incompetent FOG appointees.... like Rice the Unready.... are out there, doing the ask-me-a-question-and-I'll-tell-you-a-half-truth Bush shuffle.

It's time for more FOG to roll out.