Whenever a Bush administration official is in hot water, whether for starting a war for the heck of it or shooting an old man in the face, I have often argued that there’s just no point in calling for a resignation, because it’s not going to happen. The White House knows that they can stonewall and, after a few days, the media will run out of things to write about and that will be the end of it.
That’s certainly not the case with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the firing of the U.S. attorneys.
Part of the reason that this is different is that now Democrats control Congress, giving them the ability to hold hearings, launch investigations, and subpoena the White House. Part of the reason is also that the more of this story that’s made public, the worse it looks. (Recall Secretary Rice’s annoyed admission that, yes, there was an August 6, 2001 presidential daily briefing entitled “Bin Laden determined to strike in US” and, yes, it did specify hijackings and, true, buildings in New York were the target, but that shouldn’t have prevented President Bush from immediately going on a long vacation.) Every new document digs the White House in a little deeper and shows that their motivations were a little worse.
Gonzales will either resign or he’ll be canned. Conservatives’ dream of Justice Gonzales will not come to pass. Within a year he’ll be a college professor or, given the Bush administration’s track record, a lobbyist. Stick a fork in him — he’s done.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Because that would be lame. And that’s what Congressional Democrats do when it comes down to the wire: the lamest thing possible.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’d rather he be impeached. All of the crimes Gonzales have committed are far more serious than lying under oath about sex.
Shorter Bush announcement: I’m the Decider! And don’t bother trying to subpoena anyone.
“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.
“Within a year he’ll be …, given the Bush administration’s track record, a lobbyist.” AND the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.