Conservatives’ dream of Justice Gonzales will not come to pass.

Eek! Conservatives dreaming of Justice Gonzales? I’m sure there are some, somewhere, but Gonzales is no darling of the conservative wing of the Republican party.

Posted by Jon on 19 March 2007 @ 9pm

Let’s see, why were these prosecutors fired?

Oh yeah…not enough voter fraud prosecutions.

What, you really mean Democratic prosecutions. Prosecuting Republicans gets you fired.

so….whatever happened to that FBI investigation of voter intimidation in Virginia.

Oh yeah(2), the prosecutor here became the firer and his replacement is part of the cleanup.

Guess Justice will never be done.®

® Term is a registered trademark of the Bush administration. All Rights reserved.

Posted by Bill Kuster on 19 March 2007 @ 10pm

If I was Bush I would not allow Gonzales to resign no matter what. Because it’s Gonzales who is drawing all of the fire right now. Anyone really think that this whole thing goes away if Gonzales decides to explore opportunities in the private sector? No way. The primary effect of his resignation would be that the wolves would arrive at the door of the Oval Office over this thing. Bush’s problems would get worse, not better.

That’s not to say that Gonzales won’t find himself sitting in a dark storage room with his red stapler by the end of the week. It’s impossible to predict how the administration will handle this since Fred Fielding has taken point rather than the usual suspects. I just think they’d be crazy to let Gonzales go.

Posted by Jack on 20 March 2007 @ 8am

Conservatives dreaming of Justice Gonzales? I’m sure there are some, somewhere, but Gonzales is no darling of the conservative wing of the Republican party.

No, I certainly didn’t mean to imply that this was universal. I wish there was some syntactically non-ugly way to indicate that a reference to a group (eg, Republicans, Democrats, etc.) is only intended to describe the members of that group who fit the qualifier used within that description. “Some progressives” and “some Democrats” starts looking ugly after a while.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 20 March 2007 @ 8am

The White House is facing dueling interests here.

If they keep Gonzales on then he continues to draw all of the fire. Trouble is, he’s standing right in front of the White House — he’s drawing fire and a lot of it is finding its target with the administration. If they get rid of Gonzales, sacrificing him may be enough that the public will believe that the matter has been settled. But if it’s not, the White House has lost their cover.

It wouldn’t surprise me to find that deal has been (or will be) struck between top Congressional Democrats and the White House: get rid of Gonzales and we’ll take the heat off.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 20 March 2007 @ 8am

Predicting at this juncture that Gonzales won’t make it will not qualify you for the annual Nostradamus Prize. Since Sunday the headlines have been talking about how his support is melting away. If I had to bet, I say they’ll pull a Clinton, and he’ll resign some time Friday afternoon.

Jon is defintely correct about the conservative nightmare that would have been Justice Gonzales. Perhaps you were thinking of Miguel Estrada who the Senate Dems filibustered after Bush appointed him to serve on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals sometime back in the beginning of Bush’s 1st term. He was a fave among us knuckle-draggers.

There is no one more emblamatic of the cronyism in the Bush WH than Gonzales, and I won’t miss him. Bring back Ashcroft!

Posted by Judge Smails on 20 March 2007 @ 8am

Waldo,

I guess I just don’t see Gonzales’ head as being much to bargain with. If I was Patrick Leahy, I’m not sure why I would strike a deal to end the Senate hearings if Gonzales resigned. Which is the only deal that could really be struck. What does Leahy or the Senate Demorats or anyone really get from that? Does he really think that Gonzales was as high as it went?

I suppose that Leahy could also offer to allow closed testimony from WH staff, but that would be a pretty sorry deal for the WH to agree to in exchange for axing a cabinet official. A sign of true desperation.

The only rationale for a deal would be if the White House thinks that the Senate hearings are going to be so damning that they force Gonzales to leave no matter what, so they might as well sell him for peanuts while they can rather than getting nothing at all 2 weeks from now. Leahy should interpret a willingness on the part of the WH to cut a deal as a sign that he really doesn’t need to.

Again, this is not to say that Gonzales won’t be out. I’m just trying to figure out the whole structure of the thing.

Posted by Jack on 20 March 2007 @ 10am

If I was Patrick Leahy, I’m not sure why I would strike a deal to end the Senate hearings if Gonzales resigned. Which is the only deal that could really be struck. What does Leahy or the Senate Demorats or anyone really get from that?

Because that would be lame. And that’s what Congressional Democrats do when it comes down to the wire: the lamest thing possible.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 20 March 2007 @ 10am

No, I certainly didn’t mean to imply that this was universal. I wish there was some syntactically non-ugly way to indicate that a reference to a group (eg, Republicans, Democrats, etc.) is only intended to describe the members of that group who fit the qualifier used within that description. “Some progressives” and “some Democrats” starts looking ugly after a while.

I agree, those descriptors would be lame. The only reason I call out Gonzales as not being any sort of conservative fantasy is because, in fact, it’s actually to the other extreme; conservatives were rallying against him back when he was being considered for the court. He just doesn’t have a conservative track record, and I don’t know of any conservatives who want him on the court.

Posted by Jon on 20 March 2007 @ 12pm

It’s my recollection that social conservatives didn’t like Gonzales for his track record on abortion and affirmative action. Traditional conservatives (for lack of a better term to describe non-socially conservative Republicans) didn’t object to him in any way, but didn’t see him as a guy to get excited about, making him a man without a base.

That would change now — or so my conservative friends tell me — with Democrats controlling Congress. No longer could a strict constructionist get through. Gonzales would now be among Bush’s best hopes and, at least for those conservatives considering what could happen to the SCOTUS now, he’d end up being a modern best-case scenario for conservatives.

“Conservatives” — referring to Bush’s base — clearly would oppose anybody to the left of Ghengis Khan for the SCOTUS, with Gonzales certainly appearing in that group.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 20 March 2007 @ 12pm

Ah, I understand the tenor of your previous post now. But I have one quibble with your logic in the preceding post.

Are you saying that a conservative jurist unanimously voted well-qualified by the ABA, possessing rock-solid strict constructionist credentials, who’s affable, charming, handsome and can handle the Judiciary Cmte grilling he’d get (think CJ Roberts) couldn’t get confirmed simply b/c Dems have a 2 vote (actually 1 vote with T. Johnson still on the sidelines) advantage in the Senate?

I’m not saying there’s a guy/gal in the conservative bullpen with the gravitas of Roberts, but if there is, I would expect him/her to be able to persuade a couple of Dems to buck the party and get confirmed.

Posted by Judge Smails on 20 March 2007 @ 1pm

Are you saying that a conservative jurist unanimously voted well-qualified by the ABA, possessing rock-solid strict constructionist credentials, who’s affable, charming, handsome and can handle the Judiciary Cmte grilling he’d get (think CJ Roberts) couldn’t get confirmed simply b/c Dems have a 2 vote (actually 1 vote with T. Johnson still on the sidelines) advantage in the Senate?

If that nomination were to come today? I don’t buy that it’d get through — the White House is incredibly week, and Congressional Dems are feeling their Wheaties. There’s no way to say for sure what would happen, but I think it’d be a hell of a fight.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 20 March 2007 @ 1pm

Judge Smails,

Bear in mind that it’s not just about the vote of the full Senate. Nominees go through the Judicial Committee first (and sometimes last). You have to ask whether Patrick Leahy will let a nominee get his foot in the door in the first place. I don’t know the whole make-up of that Committee off-hand so I’d say you’d want to look at who you think the swing vote would be that would let a nominee get to a full vote. I don’t think that Lieberman is on the Senate Judicial Committee but I could be wrong there.

Posted by Jack on 20 March 2007 @ 2pm

I think S. Judic. Cmte votes to recommend or not the nominee to the full Senate, but their vote is not determinative of whether the nominee gets voted up or down by the whole Senate. I think.

Obviously, a conservative Bush nominee would have a better chance turning a Lieberman or maybe a moderate Dem from a state the GOP generally does well in than he would with Leahy, Schumer, Kennedy, Biden et al.

Posted by Judge Smails on 20 March 2007 @ 3pm

I’d rather he be impeached. All of the crimes Gonzales have committed are far more serious than lying under oath about sex.

Posted by Sam Hensel on 20 March 2007 @ 4pm

Shorter Bush announcement: I’m the Decider! And don’t bother trying to subpoena anyone.

Posted by MB on 20 March 2007 @ 4pm

“We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants” George Bush.

OK, then just give us the dishonorable Karl Rove, William Kelley, and J. Scott Jennings.

Posted by Bubby on 20 March 2007 @ 5pm

“Within a year he’ll be …, given the Bush administration’s track record, a lobbyist.” AND the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Posted by Josh on 21 March 2007 @ 12pm