It sometimes pays to read what the opposition is writing and thinking. And, to put it bluntly, they are not happy with Alberto Gonzales. Here’s just a sampler from Captain Ed:
As good as the argument of “innocent until proven guilty” sounds, it doesn’t apply here. I’m not arguing Gonzales commited a crime; I’m saying he’s been deceptive and/or incompetent, neither of which is commendable in the nation’s top law-enforcement officer. One doesn’t need to be convicted to be fired, which the eight federal prosecutors could tell you from personal experience.
At this point, the notion that Bush has to retain Gonzales to protect himself and Republicans in general is starting to become absurd. Gonzales inflicted most of this damage on the administration himself, and the longer he remains, the more damage he will do. As Jonah said, it’s hard to find a worse example of self-inflicted damage outside of circus tents.
Gonzales’ dismissal/resignation would not do any more damage to Republicans than has already occurred. If we have to defend incompetents and/or deceivers as critical to the Republican cause, then be prepared for a disastrous 2008. Offering Clintonian word-parsing as a defense does nothing to help the cause of conservatism.
There will come a point, and it cannot be long off, when this exact same logic will apply to the President and his Vice-President.
Booman,
I have been a bit shrill and accusatory this past week. Accept my sincere apologies, and please know that I will refrain from engaging in character assessments and character attacks. And Adam B, I apologize to you. I hope you can accept my apology.
Love,
LG
thank you, and I hope Adam B sees and accepts your apology.
I am more than happy to let this go. Just don’t let it happen again.
Looking ahead, it is important to forge this line of agreement between the left and the libertarian right. We have to get them to see that we all agree on some fundamental issues of civil rights that transcend our other (very deep) differences. It’s a little like the calming down of religious tensions in the eighteenth century. They didn’t go away, but they became manageable, because everyone who had lived through the wars of the seventeenth century knew what could happen if you let the tension get out of hand.
The Right was so blinded by their hatred of what they were brain-washed into thinking what the Left is, that they were prepared to accept denial of their own civil liberties to suppress us. Maybe the next step will be for them to see their terrible double-standard.
There are times Captain Ed can be almost…reasonable. It doesn’t begin to make up for the rest of the time, but as Pop says, even a broken grandfather clock is right twice a day.
The point is that there’s quite a few bloggers out on the right who are basically taking Ed’s point: Gonzo either knew what Sampson was doing and lied to Congress about it, or Gonzo is the pointy-haired boss and Sampson’s been doing the heavy lifting at the DoJ all this time now. Clearly, he has to go and go now.
Well, you know what? Screw them, BooMan. Just because you’re doing the right thing for the totally wrong reasons doesn’t mean it’s the right thing. What really burns me about guys like Ed is that he and his buddies had no problem with Gonzo’s actions or his qualifications for the job when he was gleefully stating habeus corpus didn’t exist for Americans, that the President could selectively reserve the right to ignore any law Congress passed, when he openly admitted to illegal warrantless wiretapping and internet surveillance on thousands of Americans, when he was forced to apologize for the FBI for massively abusing NSLs under the Patriot Act, or when he was smugly spouting his theories that the unitary executive in an undeclared war trumped any federal check or balance. No, they were perfectly fine with these actions. While most of the Left were screaming for him to be sacked and investigated, the Right said “9/11 CHANGED EVERYTHING!” and had zero problem with the man.
It took Gonzo making Bush look like an idiot and getting caught lying by the press in almost record time that was unforgivable to the Right.
So while yes, it’s important to see what the Bushieblogs are saying, it’s also even more important to ask why they are saying what they are saying. It’s not that Gonzo was in fact an unconstitutional fascist enabler that guys like Ed have a problem with, it was the fact his professional staff of apologists, ax-men, and dissemblers wasn’t up to White House standards, and that the DoJ didn’t close ranks fast enough.
In other words, Kyle Sampson isn’t as politically devious a bastard as Karl Rove is.
Really, that’s the Right’s problem with Gonzales, no more, no less. Gonzo has to go for one simple reason.
He violated the Eleventh Commandment.
Thou Shall Not Get Caught.
Think about this for a while, folks. That’s the real pisser here. Yeah, it would be great to see these guys finally wise up and say “Gee, Bush needs to go.”
It would have been infinitely better for Right Blogostan to say that, say, four years ago when he started a pointless war, instead of enabling him to do so and calling anyone who disagreed with it a traitor.
Ya know? Just saying.