Somewhat Shorter Charles Krauthammer
Posted on March 23rd, 2007 by HTML Mencken
Above: ‘Prove the White House sabotaged ongoing investigations! I dare ya! I double dare ya!’
- If I take the line that Alberto Gonzales is merely incompetent rather than a serial liar, and that Republicans’ voter fraud investigations target the dead rather than live minorities, it’s easier for me to argue that Democrats are only using the AG ‘scandal’ to criminalize honest conservative politics.
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.
So, what’s his idea of a necessary scandal?
Could someone please explain the vagaries of the US justice system? I mean, this:
How could Gonzales permit his deputy to say that the prosecutors were fired for performance reasons when all he had to say was that U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and the president wanted them replaced?
implies that the Preznit can hire and fire whomever, whenever, and for whatever reason, his little heart desires and his even tinier minds conceives. But isn’t there something about separation of powers in the US constitution? Or am I hallucinating, due to too many fishy treats?
And what about this?
Democrats are charging that this was done for reasons of politics and that politics have no place in the legal system. This is laughable. U.S. attorneys are appointed by the president — and, by tradition, are recommended by home state politicians of the same party, not by a group of judges or a committee of the American Bar Association. Which makes their appointment entirely political.
Excuse me? Is this really what goes on in the US, home of freedom and democracy and crunchy ponies?
Prosecutors fall under the Executive Branch.
==
Yes, that is really what goes on. Think of it as spoils of victory.
So, what’s his idea of a necessary scandal?
Uh, if someone gets a blowjob….
Does Krauthammer read the newspapers? I get the feeling he’s living in a bunker where the only news he gets is clippings that his Republican friends slide under the blast doors.
Until the Democrats come up with real evidence of that — and they have not — this affair remains a pseudo-scandal. Which would never have developed had Gonzales made the easy and obvious case from day one.
He doesn’t seem to realize that a large component of the scandal is the trouble that Democrats are having in getting real evidence, and what there is contradicts his point of view.
Okay, I may be wrong here, but I think – I think – that Charles is missing the point about what makes this a scandal. Now that’s just a shot in the dark on my part, but I’m going to throw it out there anyway.
Excuse me? Is this really what goes on in the US, home of freedom and democracy and crunchy ponies?
This is what goes on, because nobody before or since Watergate has ever operated with such pure bad faith. The prosecutors are responsible to all three branches of government (all attorneys are officers of the court), and under certain circumstances can be appointed by judges. This means that, yes, they are appointed through the joint authority of congress and the executive, and are political in the sense that the executive sets policy by appointing them.
But the white house can not use proxies in the DOJ to compel the prosecutors to pursue frivolous cases, or to drop cases against loyal republicans. This is obstruction of justice, just like any threat by anyone made on a prosecutor. The broad language of the obstruction of justice law has been passed by congress, signed by a president, supported by the courts, so monarchical president can wiggle out of it. Even if there is a ‘unitary executive’ it has to follow the law.
Sorry for the snark-free post. The misinformation campaign has been so pervasive I feel I have to lecture everytime this comes up.
Oops.
I love how they always insist that attorneys “serve at the pleasure of the president” and “the president can fire them whenever he wants” and yet simultaneously claim that Bush knew nothing about it and it was all a second rank guy in the DoJ who did it.
The whole problem started because the DoJ LIED about the firings and then LIED about their LYING about it. And then the White House LIED about whether they knew the DoJ was LYING.
But it’s not a scandal. Nope. Not at all.
And, they lied about the firings, because the underlying justifications for the firings were based in pure politics.
Although this is not technically against the rules, it’s not a pleasant argument to make, and if legal challenges delineates such a requirement, they wouldn’t be able to do it in the future.
Besides, they figured they wouldn’t be challenged on it. They’ve been comped on all the previous swindles, why not one more?
Besides, they figured they wouldn’t be challenged on it.
And this just shows how stupid Rove and Bush are. They did all this just as the Dems were getting ready to take power by finagling a provision into the renewal of the “patriot” act, ostensibly for continuity in case of a terrorist attack, that allowed them to bypass senate confirmation for new US attorneys and thought nobody would notice or make a peep about it. Charlie doesn’t mention that for some reason but just how involved the WH was in getting that provision into the law is no doubt something that the judiciary committee, Specter aside, would like to question Rove and Miers and eventually Bush himself about. What a lying sack of shit this Krauthammer is.
atheist said,
March 23, 2007 at 14:06
“Uh, if someone gets a blowjob….”
That would be a case of serving to pleasure the president.
Wouldn’t it make this dickhead’s job easier if he and all the other right-idiots would just say “America has always been a Republican dictatorship”?
So on Thursday Alberto Gonzales once again told us he is working tirelessly to be sure he has every American’s back covered…especially our children. Should the alleged firing of six top performing U.S. Attorneys make us feel better?
I don’t know about anyone else but I’ve always been suspicious of the guy that seems to go out of his way to tell you he’s “got your back covered”.
See a sarcastic visual that demonstrates how many Americans feel when the Attorney General reassures us that he’s got our backs covered…here:
http://www.thoughttheater.com/2007/03/the_white_house_goes_on_the_offensive.php
I think it is fascinating that the GOOD spin on this administration is: “No, you libruls are wrong! We aren’t evil! We are incompetent! Hah ! Take that!”
Think about this, the defense of the administration in all these scandals is “We’re incompetent, not evil.”:
War is going to hell in Iraq.
FBI abuses national security letter.
Scooter Libby outed a covert agent.
Abu Ghriab.
Guantanamo holding people who turned out not to be terrorists.
Katrina
Return of the Taliban
Osama bin Laden, at large 5 years after WTC
Alberto “Torturer” Gonzalez lying to Congress
I’m sure we can come up with more examples. And the administrators DEFENDERS are using incompetence as the GOOD SPIN on all this.
Unbelievable
Where precisely in the Constitution or in statues does it say that US Attorneys serve “at the pleasure of the President”?
Is this phrase construed in American law to mean a right unchallengeable by anything else in the Constitutional system?
We do know this from the Nixon case: that no exercise of executive authority or privilege can be used to violate the law or to obstruct justice in the matter of the commission of a crime.
Gah! That picture!
How is he still alive? I thought Hannibal Lecter ate him, like, right after he got off the plane in Martinique.
Krauthammer: Brighter than Cal Thomas, dimmer than George Will.
And uglier than anyone on the planet except maybe Olasky.
I apologize for the looksism in advance.
And there you go! The kinda things you learn at Sadly No!:
Miers.
Oh pease oh pease oh pease, let me read Gary tell us how the Republic is Harriet Miers; the fact is, if Harriet Miers and her gift-to-the-nation legal prowess are not granted Executive Privilege For Life ®, then the American public will finally be awakened to the fact that Democrats will abandon any principle to destroy America.
To take the snark out, Gary, that means that if you and you’rn don’t support Miers “One Thousand Percent,” you’ve sided with the Liberal atheoislamicommuconomexiliofascisti in opposing W.
.
Dang, I still couldn’t get all the snark out. Where’s the “Copyeditor” button?
u
I think the thing that most burns the right-wing pundits about Clinton and his blow job is not that he got one: that’s the right, nay, duty, of every red-blooded American man.
No, their complaint is that he got it from an intern, instead of from them.