Gonzales Watch Concludes
So Alberto Gonzales has resigned. Are Americans satisfied? Hell no. As has been remarked earlier in these pages, we always suspected that the White House was keeping the embattled Attorney General in office not to promote the work this Attorney General could do, but as a bulwark against the work a new Attorney General could do (and will have to do) in furthering investigations that could harm the Bush/Cheney administration.
This has always seemed the obvious explanation for Gonzales’s stubborn refusal to resign, and I still find it amazing when news outlets would report that “George Bush is standing by Gonzales” and discuss “Bush’s loyalty” in keeping Gonzales in office. Since the Attorney General was having a rough ride of historic proportions in the press and on Capitol Hill, it’s impossible to imagine that Gonzales wanted to stay in office. Clearly, it was Gonzales who was standing by Bush, and not the other way around.
It’s also obvious that the White House was calling the shots on how long Alberto Gonzales would stay and when he would resign. It’s all about strategy, and this latest move is just another play in the long, sad game known as the George W. Bush presidency. Next up, the US Senate will reconvene, and I trust they’re planning to keep turning up the heat.
September 3rd, 2007 at 2:26 pm
You were right, I was wrong. Though glad to see Gonzo go. It’s funny, we think we have some control over our government in a presumed ‘democracy.’ Doesn’t seem like we have any more say than the Soviets under Stalin. They don’t kill us for criticizing them, but they sure as hell don’t represent our wishes either. It’s sad.
September 5th, 2007 at 9:48 am
Since, I, too, am no fan of Gonzales, I thought it was mighty tasty that
old “Speedy Gonzo” threw in the towel. I have marked my calendar for
September 17th. Just a few dozen days away. Point was well taken in the discussion as to why Gonzo waited so long. Some folks just “diehard”.
September 8th, 2007 at 7:49 am
LitMonthly, while I share your general disgust with the current administration, doesn’t the fact that Gonzales and Rumsfeld have been pushed out and Bush thrown into a defensive posture on Iraq prove that we do have, at least, more say than the Soviets under Stalin?
There are so many valid points to make about the conduct of this administration — why should protesters like us muck up our message with hyperbole like this? It only makes the anti-war side of the debate seem as dishonest as the pro-war side.
September 8th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
You and I have a very different view of reality. I see a dying baby in Darfur and think - I did that, I’m responsible. I allow the world to be run by big Bush and little Bush. I see the children and old people in Palestine, Baghdad, and all parts of our sad little world.
We could educate the stupid, but don’t. We could preserve and care for our dying planet, but don’t. Distribute our great wealth with more equity, so that none are desperately poor and pathetic and hopeless. We could tap the limitless potential that all people have, and no people use.
Yet we massacre children and old people, we slaughter the bounty of our planet in our oceans, and forests, and grasslands. And those who do so, don’t care if they are shamed, despised, or if one of them is forced to resign. Halliburton has moved to Dubai. It’s a done deal. America is run by defense contractors who are given our $10 million every hour, while we haggle over the price of books.
These same corporations own the news media, and thus shape the thinking of the public. It has always been so, and always will be…unless we do everything in our power to change that. There is no brave new world unless we create it. Look all around you, we are responsible for this.
In chess, your opponent will always sacrifice his pawn to take your castle.