The US Attorneys scandal is yet another example of the Nixonian bent of the Bush White House. As is well known, characters like Cheney and Rumsfeld got their political starts in the Nixon administration, and have been obsessing about defending “executive privilege” ever since, even inventing weird new “jurisprudential” justifications for secrecy and stealth like the the unitary executive. As the Senate and House subpoena Rove and his merry crew, and the White House offers in turn secret hearings with no oath taken, it looks like this bunch of authoritarians sense a chance to overturn US v. Nixon. Press secretary Tony Snow has been bizarrely arguing that there is no congressional oversight function over the White House. And for the latest Nixonian twist?
A couple of days ago, I advanced the following explanation for part of the US Attorney purge:(a) The provision allowing Bush to appoint US Attorneys without Senate confirmation was slipped into the PATRIOT Act to benefit Tim Griffin, who replaced Bud Commins as US Attorney in the Eastern district of Arkansas.
(b) Griffin is normally described as a protégé of Karl Rove, which he is. But his specific area of expertise is opposition research: digging up dirt on one’s political opponents. He was the head of opposition research for the Bush 2004 campaign.
(c) The reason the administration wanted to make Tim Griffin a US Attorney in Arkansas was to send their chief opposition researcher to the state where Hillary Clinton, then the presumptive frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, had spent most of her adult life; and to send him not as a campaign employee but as a US Attorney with subpoena power.
Fortunately, the US public are turning away from Republicans in droves.
As we all know now the lunar-right jumped-the-shark soon after ‘ Rathergate’
( years ago in net years and even Friedman units) and so the Left is now made glorious summer of content in Blogistan.
The vast LEFT wing conspiracy now rules!
Two blogs in particular have helped bring the Cheney regime undone.
Janes weapons@ ‘Firedoglake’ for Yellowgate and now just Joshin’ @’ Talking-points-memo’ for Attorneygate.
These explosive exposes being uncovered online is as big a story, in its way, as anything else out there.
This could be spell the end of the Military-entertainment complex!
End of the dinosaur era with Jurassic snark!
With our noses in the tent we may now make benefit glorious nation of Blogistan!
Long live beautiful bloggery. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.
Joan Didion had a piece on Rumsfeld/Cheney in the NYRof B about 6 or 7 weeks ago – a modern Grimms tale of men pursuing executive power for no obvious ideological reason, simply power. Naked, ruthless, and determined to acknowledge no democratic limits upon that power. That Gonzales has turned the Attorney Generals Office over to the Rovian world view comes as no surprise, merely his stupidity at leaving himself so exposed. & this is too the man who gave The Shrub the advise that torture was constitutionally OK, being within presidential ambit of extraordinary powers. But he appears a very marked man….[LINK]
I bet Gonzales is sorry he didn’t sack 93 US attorneys, that being the magic number acceptable to the left.
The Unitary executive theory is certainly understandable given the general trajectory of most major parliamentary or federal systems, in the 20th century at least, towards centralization. But it would be absurd to assert it as a constitutional principle, in my opinion. The founding fathers would look at the modern Presidency (at least from FDR onwards) with horror. In my opinion, the chief role for the President in the minds of the founders would have been largely to present a unified face to the world, and provide a unified command in times of war and national emergency. In periods of normalcy (which despite the the wars on terror and in Iraq, largely prevails today), the principle which the founders would favour, in my view, would have been congressional supremacy. The purpose of both the revolution and the constitution was to curb executive power. Looking to the British, early Americans would have seen Parliament, not the Crown, as something to aspire to in their own system. If the founders saw the President today, they would not see George W. Bush, but George the Third.
Well said, Cliff.
So, what’s Chimpo gunna do? Declare martial law to protect his little buddy?
Ha!
When’s the right going to produce someone with balls?
John W. Dean’s analysis, as always, is instructive. He compares the current crisis to the Gorsuch fiasco under Reagan. His concluding statements are quite heartening for the Bush-haters among us.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/6292
This crisis must be significant. It has featured on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show every day this week.
Rawstory is also reporting that there are more pissed-off employees from the Justice Department who are set to testify. This is getting big fast. The only thing that could save Bush now is a Gulf of Tonkin type incident that could precipitate a war with Iran. Hmmm….
Zietgiest zapping post, Kim, and great contributions all! When control freaks and their coteries unravel they seem to do so in direct proportion to how tightly they are bound. The Justice Dept. has released emails that nail Abu Gonzales. Well placed pollies and pundits give A.G. the A.G. a month in the job tops. Assuming a constitutional crises is avoided, and that’s no cert when dealing with zealous psychopaths like BushCo, Rove under oath and on the stand will be a harder nut to crack than Harriett Miers. Gushing Harrie is not of the same neocon warrior-class as Scooter Libby, where an ideological soldier either takes one for the Big Guy, or options hara-kiri. I’m with John Dean too, Silkworm. Harrie has been cocooned for so long, she’ll fade fast under a hot legal spotlight.
Sez John Dean: “Bush’s greatest problem here, however, is Harriett Miers. It is dubious he can exert any privilege over a former White House Counsel; I doubt she is ready to go to prison for him; and all who know her say if she is under oath, she will not lie. That could be a problem.”
Meanwhile, in D.C., “Chip,chip,chip,chip,chip”, Democratic wood-peckers are on the job early this spring.
New Tricky Dick moment – Rove and others, employed by the Federal Government as presidential aides, sent emails via Republican National Committee accounts to apparently evade legal requirements of preservation and disclosure:
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2007/03/an_odd_wrinkle.html
More Nixonian stuff:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/nyregion/25infiltrate.html?th&emc=th
Talking Points Memo and TPMmuckraker has had particularly good coverage of all this. [link] and [link]
Karl Rove and a team of “consultants” are under investigation internationally for involvement in providing technical and strategic election tampering assistance to conservative PAN candidate Felipe Calderon in the July 2006 presidential election in Mexico, and to arch-neo-cons in the Berlusconi Cabinet, particularly then Interior Minister Beppe Pisanu and Foreign Minister Ginafranco Fini in the April 2006 election in Italy.
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/ (Scroll down to March 19, 2007.)
Time for taxpayer funded elections
Let me just say it is apparent the time for tax payer funded election is long over due. I know what you’re thinking “my taxes are too high now” The reason you’re taxes are too high is our Politicians are for sale to the highest bidder i.e.: Phiser, GE, Ford, and GM you get the point. Republicans say “Money is Free Speech” I say Bull S**t. If each politician received 10,000 dollars of tax payer money and 5 free TV or radio spots per election, for the first time in our history the (crooks) Politicians would work for us “WE THE PEPOLE” and not forPHISER, GE, FORD, GM, EXXON, you get the point. This system works in Europe. If any one reading this think the Politicians are working for us “WE THE PEPOLE” and not there corporate masters you’re drinking the cool aid and need to wake up.