Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan All I know is, if Mr. Bush says "You're doin' a heckuva job, Alberto," it's time for Mr. Gonzalez to pack.
Originally Posted By JohnS1 "What really galls me about the white house offer is how DEFIANT bush was in his "offer" - essentially, take it or leave it." Now, that's really funny, because I see Bush's defiance as a long time in coming. I am as sick of Bush as the rest of you - but because of the way in which he has laid down and tried to court the dems his entire second term. It's about time he says - hey, I can fire whomever I ___ well want to and let's see you try and stop me. As for Schummer being your personal favorite, in my book he is one of the particularly loathsome characters in this whole stage play. What a phony. But that's what's cool about this site -there are no hard feelings and we can turn around with nary the skip of a beat and discuss the relative merits of fog density in the Mr. Toad ride! But, of course, Mr. Toad is not on trail here!
Originally Posted By gadzuux Let's see - the side you're advocating for is the side that will permit testimony, but only if it isn't under oath. Whyever do you suppose that is? And, bush supporter or not, don't you see how that plays with the general public? Why would they agree to testify before congress, but refuse to do so under oath?
Originally Posted By DlandDug I disagree with the idea of testifying without being bound by an oath. But I can understand why there would be reluctance to do so. More and more of these investigations have been turned into fishing expeditions. Starr set out to uncover the Whitewater land deal, and ended up catching Clinton lying about low grade nookie. Most recently, Fitzgerald managed to net an administration assistant for perjury, when even the jury was licking their chops at the prospect of bringing down Rove or Cheney. So when a new committee starts asking questions, it's no surprise that the subjects at hand will try to do everything they can to limit the potential damage.
Originally Posted By gadzuux You mean the potential damage of either telling the truth or being caught in a lie. Either way, the administration loses. And that tells you pretty much everything you need to know right there.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <<It would be nice if you could provide some, then.>> <I did provide some, and mentioned how to find more.> No, what you provided was transparently biased and essentially worthless. <<Sorry, Doug, you'll have to do better than that for anything resembling "proof.">> <I provided more "proof" than anyone on the other side did.> Providing something biased and worthless, even if the other side provides nothing, makes it a wash.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 I'm not sure if Bush is going to try to hold on to Gonzalez or not. He's stubborn enough to do it, and fighting having him testify under oath speaks to him trying to keep him. On the other hand, he'd probably fight the under oath thing anyway (certainly for Rove), and on Hardball last night there was a guy saying his GOP sources are floating names of possible replacements for A.G. Make of that what you will.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <No, what you provided was transparently biased and essentially worthless.> Well, it was a column written by a liberal and published in the NY Times. How far left of a source do I need to get for you to accept it?
Originally Posted By CrouchingTigger According to what I heard on NPR this morning, it's illegal to lie to Congress, regardless of whether they are under oath or not. A transcript is taken regardless. But being under oath apparently makes the transcript public, and that is what Bush is trying to avoid. If they are not under oath, the transcript can be kept closed to the public, but available to the senators.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <<No, what you provided was transparently biased and essentially worthless.>> <Well, it was a column written by a liberal and published in the NY Times. How far left of a source do I need to get for you to accept it? > I don't care if it's left or right. What matters is if it's credible.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Wow!! I haven't seen this big a deal since my buddy Slick Willy left protein on a blue dress. I'm on Dubya's side on this one. There IS Executive Privilege, and he and his staff don't need to tell anyone jack-squat.
Originally Posted By gadzuux >> ... he and his staff don't need to tell anyone jack-squat. << True enough, and if they had adopted that attitude earlier, they wouldn't be in the spot they're in now. Instead, they lied - repeatedly. And they smeared the reputations of these attorneys that they canned for their own political reasons. It's because of these actions that congress is stepping up to their constitutional duty of "oversight". The really startling thing is how politically tone deaf the white house is being. Instead of taking action to reduce the scandal, they're fanning the flames, and self-inflicting further damage onto themselves with defiant statements and "dare ya" rhetoric. And of course I'm delighted. The more you put these clowns under pressure, the more isolated they become and the more stupid gaffes they make. Pass the popcorn.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip ^^^ BINGO!! If they'd shut up to start with they would have been OK. Now they are scrambling to cover lies. (Hmmm... have I heard something like this before???) Personally, I liked the good old days. You would think the Leader of the Free World could get a little intern action without everyone going nuts about it.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/21/attorneys.email.gap/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITI CS/03/21/attorneys.email.gap/index.html</a> Now, there's a mysterious 16-day gap in the email records turned over to Congress. I'm sure that there's an innocent explanation for this, and that it has nothing to do with hiding anything. And, remember how Tony Snow was so certain that it was Harriet Miers that originated the US Attorney firings? Well, now apparently now he says "At this juncture, people have hazy memories." Imagine that?
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan His last name isn't snow for nothing. From Editor & Publisher: >>Q So Tony, back when President Clinton was citing executive privilege to keep internal deliberations in that White House from being talked about in Congress, you wrote now famously that -- MR. SNOW: I'm glad it was famous. I didn't get that kind of coverage at the time. (Laughter.) Q It's become more famous -- MR. SNOW: Oh, is it making its way through the left-wing blog? Q It is. (Laughter.) Q No, no. But you spoke -- you wrote quite eloquently about this. You said, "Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold the chief executive accountable." MR. SNOW: Right. Q "We would have a constitutional right to a cover-up." MR. SNOW: Right. Now let me -- Q So why were you wrong then and right now? MR. SNOW: Because you're -- this is a not entirely analogous situation. I just told you what we have in fact offered to make available to members of Congress. What we are doing is we are holding apart confidential communications between advisers and the president, and that is pretty standard practice in White Houses. But again -- Q It wasn't with the Clinton administration. MR. SNOW: Well, I'm not so sure. And I'll let others do the legal arguing on that.<< <a href="http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003560724" target="_blank">http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp /news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003560724</a>
Originally Posted By gadzuux I don't think dumping gonzales is enough. Not any more. They would have been smart to cut him loose early on, hoping that treating him like a sacrificial lamb would be enough to make the whole thing go away. Instead, this could drag on through the remainder of his term, with the stonewalling and using the courts to run out the clock. You have to think that there's a whole lot of paranoia going on at 1600 pennsylvania avenue these days, and a lot of secrets piling up that can't stay hidden forever.
