Alberto Gonzales: What’s At Stake
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is all over the news this week, following his unconvincing Senate testimony last week (here’s one of the stories going around, and there was a lot of hilarity after President Bush claimed that Gonzales’s testimony helped his case). Still, I have a strange sense that most news outlets aren’t communicating exactly why this is such a high-stakes situation for the Bush administration and for the House/Senate leadership, and why the Bush administration is clinging so stubbornly to the hope that Gonzales will not be eventually forced to resign. There’s a hidden story here, and most Washington DC journalists know it and hint about it, but for some reason few journalists are coming right out and explaining what’s going on in this case.
The fact is, Gonzales is not just another high-ranking Bush appointee. He’s the Attorney General, which means he has the authority to investigate and prosecute anyone suspected of committing a federal crime, including top administration officials up to the level of the President’s top staff, thus encircling the President himself. As a longtime friend of George W. Bush and a key member of the Bush/Cheney team, Alberto Gonzales is not going to prosecute anybody close to the Bush administration for any number of wrongdoings. A different Attorney General, however, might.
Even though the Attorney General is a Presidential appointee, the appointee must be approved by the Senate, and our current Senate is not going to approve a candidate who does not demonstrate a basic willingness to investigate the Executive office independently of Presidential influence. So, if Gonzales were to resign, an extremely contentious nomination/approval process would begin for his replacement, and since this nation cannot survive long without leadership in the Department of Justice, some compromise candidate would have to eventually be approved. This new Attorney General could prove very hazardous for the Bush White House as our Congress and Senate continue to conduct aggressive investigations into the workings of the Executive office.
This is what’s at the core of the Alberto Gonzales showdown: our government is somewhere near a state of constituional crisis, similar to the constitutional crisis of 1973-74. Remember Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre? This was one of the most critical turning points of the Watergate scandal, and it all revolved around the Attorney General’s office.
I’m not sure why so many journalists aren’t stating this clearly to the American people, but the Alberto Gonzales case is all about the viability of the Bush/Cheney administration. And I don’t believe it for a minute when Gonzales says he’s made his own choice not to resign. He’s not resigning because George W. Bush is begging him not to, and I bet he’d zoom out of Washington DC like a rocket if Bush let go of his arm. Gonzales has nothing to gain and nothing to lose at this point, but George W. Bush needs him sitting in that chair.
April 25th, 2007 at 11:55 am
Did I stumble into CNN by accident again?
April 29th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Good point about rats and sinking ships. Should be in NY Times editorial page. But…people like Bush, they’ve always liked Bush; always liked America. Bonzo the Chimp could be president, people would say - he must be smart and revered, he’s our leader.
People are stupid, we can stipulate that; it’s a given. But why? You’d think they’d be mad, vengeful. Never gonna buy a used car from CheneyRiceBush again. But they’re not. Would rather drive that lemon to their grave. Would actually die in places where CheneyRiceBush are scared to set foot in. People are stupid (and me too).
But why? Some were raised to think, others weren’t. Some sought out the hardest courses on campus - philosophy, just to learn; knowing they’re no almighty dollars there. Why is that?
Humints are curious, by nature. Children want to learn, to know. Why and how do we crush that? This is the key, the source of power to affect change - to confront and change the stupid.
May 21st, 2007 at 10:13 am
A lot of people are either (1) too beat down by life or (2) too comfortable, to say anything about it.