I know, everyone but the President thinks Mr. Gonzales performed atrociously at the most recent Senate hearings investigating the US Attorneys’ scandal. I can’t remember how often he said “I don’t recall,” or “I have no recollection,” but I’m sure it set some sort of record. And yes, he’s a miserable failure at best as a lawyer, administrator and human being.
But there is one very good reason he can’t resign as Attorney General. It’s because, that’s not really his job. The real Attorney General in the Bush administration, regardless of who holds that title officially, is Karl Rove.
(cont.)
For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Department of Justice political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates. […]
Facing nationwide voter registration drives by Democratic-leaning groups, the administration alleged widespread election fraud and endorsed proposals for tougher state and federal voter identification laws. Presidential political adviser Karl Rove alluded to the strategy last April when he railed about voter fraud in a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association. […]
Questions about the administration’s campaign against alleged voter fraud have helped fuel the political tempest over the firings last year of eight U.S. attorneys, several of whom were ousted in part because they failed to bring voter fraud cases important to Republican politicians.
Civil rights advocates charge the administration’s policies were intended to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of poor and minority voters who tend to support Democrats. By filing state and federal lawsuits, civil rights groups have won court rulings blocking some of its actions. […]
The administration, however, has repeatedly invoked allegations of widespread voter fraud to justify tougher voter ID measures and other steps to restrict access to the ballot, even though research suggests voter fraud is rare.
Since President Bush’s first attorney general, John Ashcroft, a former Republican senator from Missouri, launched a “Ballot Access and Voter Integrity Initiative” in 2001, justice department political appointees have exhorted U.S. attorneys to prosecute voter fraud cases and the department’s Civil Rights Division has sought to roll back policies to protect minority voting rights.
On virtually every significant decision affecting election balloting since 2001, the division’s Voting Rights Section has come down on the side of Republicans, notably in Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Washington and other states where recent elections have been decided by narrow margins.
Joseph Rich, who left his job as chief of the section in 2005, said these events formed an unmistakable pattern.
“As more information becomes available about the administration’s priority on combating alleged, but not well-substantiated, voter fraud, the more apparent it is that its actions concerning voter ID laws are part of a partisan strategy to suppress the votes of poor and minority citizens,” he said.
Alberto Gonzales is no mastermind capable of formulating such strategeries, nor was his butt even warming the chair in the Attorney General’s office when these policies were first conceived and implemented. He’s a loyal Bushie, a foot soldier, a designated scapegoat, nothing more. He may have been involved in the decision to determine which US attorneys were going to get the axe last year, if by involved you mean he signed off on a decision made by someone else higher up in the administration’s food chain, but to a large extent he was merely following orders. And it should be clear by now whose orders he obeyed.
Karl Rove has had a hand, and often a controlling hand at that, in every nefarious deed perpetrated by this administration. Meetings with Jack Abramoff to distribute political favors ran through his office at the White House. The plan to sell the Iraq war to the American public, as if it were just another horror film from Hollywood was his campaign. The outing of Valerie Plame was a task he helped carry out. And of course, subverting the US Department of Justice for political gain. Not that he hasn’t had help:
U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan might have played a role in determining which of her colleagues got the ax, and the House Judiciary Committee wants her to provide details of what she knew and when she knew it.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, told Senate investigators that he consulted with Buchanan about which U.S. attorneys should be asked to step down, according to a Senate Judiciary Committee aide who read a transcript of Sunday’s interview to The Associated Press. […]
A Justice Department official said Sampson consulted Buchanan while she was director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, which provides administrative support for U.S. attorneys offices across the country. Buchanan held that job from June 2004 to June 2005. During that time, a Justice Department chart rating U.S. attorneys was sent to the White House.
Working for Buchanan at that time was Monica Goodling. The former counsel to Gonzales and liaison to the White House has refused to cooperate with congressional investigators about her role in orchestrating the firings.
Mary Beth Buchanan is another loyal Bushie who had earned her wings by serving to pleasure the President. While US attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania based in in Pittsburgh, she emphasized prosecuting pornography cases, an administration sop to its radical Christian supporters. She also followed the party line when it came to investigating political corruption:
Her office has opened at least five investigations into prominent Democrats over the past five years. Critics say she has ignored allegations against fellow Republicans during that time. […]
“There’s no greater adherent to using public corruption charges against the other party than Mary Beth Buchanan,” said Jerry McDevitt, a defense lawyer representing Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, a Democrat, against charges he abused his former public office as Allegheny County coroner for private financial gain.
Her work as the US attorney in Western Pennsylvania demonstrated she knew what was most important aspect of her job — helping the President and the Republican party win elections. No wonder Karl the administration rewarded her with a critical position at the Justice Department: director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys (EOUSA). As EOUSA’s director, she was uniquely placed to assist the White House in formulating a plan for dismissing those recalcitrant US attorneys too dim witted or ethically challenged (i.e., they actually believed that ends don’t justify means) to see the big picture:
Heading the [EOUSA] was largely administrative and dull until 9/11, when the Justice Department began to use it to control U.S. attorneys, said Fred Thieman, a former U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh under President Clinton.
“I can’t understand why someone would want that position, unless there was some other purpose,” Thieman said.
Buchanan said she works hard and with determination, finding it an honor to serve President Bush and the Justice Department in whatever role necessary. Those who know Buchanan said she is a hard worker and does what’s needed to please her bosses.
“They ask, and she responds,” said Roscoe Howard Jr., former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. “Certainly, the objective evidence is that they like her.”
Substitute “Karl Rove” for “they” in the above quote by Roscoe Howard, Jr., and it all makes sense. She was brought back to the DOJ for a reason: to help pressure other US Attorneys to follow Mr. Rove’s dictates when it came to subverting their offices for the political benefit of the Republican party. Those that did as they were told kept their jobs. Those that didn’t were purged, even when they were Ms. Buchanan’s friends:
Both H. E. “Bud” Cummins and Daniel Bogden said their relationships with Ms. Buchanan were cordial.
Even though she served from June 2004 to June 2005 in the Executive Office, the men said they knew Ms. Buchanan in more of a social sense, running into her at U.S. attorney conferences and meetings.
Party before friendship, party before country, party before everything. That’s the Republican way, acording to Rove. He’ll do anything to win an election for his party. And given the power of the Executive Branch of the federal government to wield ….
Let’s be clear. Alberto Gonzales is too incompetent to have devised this scheme, or to have overseen it’s implementation. He’s a front man, someone to take the flack for the President and the President’s Brain when the political thermostat is turned up a notch or two. Which is why Bush was so happy with Gonzales’ testimony last week. Alberto did what he was supposed to do: play the fool, and obstruct the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation into who was really responsible for turning the Justice Department into the enforcement wing of the Republican National Committee. And we all know who makes, and then carries out, the political decisions for this President, don’t we?
So Gonzales can’t resign. The President and (especially) Rove need him to hide the evidence of their own skulduggery in this affair. And so he won’t. But he also won’t call the shots at the Department of Justice. That’s Karl’s job.
Here endeth the lesson.