...at some point in the very near future. Karl Rove expected to follow.

Prominent republicans join in the "liar liar pants on fire" chorus.

Quote :

"Republicans close to the White House tell CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod that President Bush is in "his usual posture: pugnacious, that no one is going to tell him who to fire." But sources also said Gonzales' firing is just a matter of time. The White House is bracing for a weekend of criticism and more calls for Gonzales to go. One source tells CBS News he's never seen the administration in such deep denial, and Republicans are growing increasingly restless for the president to take action."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/16/politics/main2580260.shtml





[Edited on March 16, 2007 at 7:21 PM. Reason : ]

3/16/2007 7:17:32 PM

Prominent tdubers join in the "liar liar pants on fire" chorus.

[Edited on March 16, 2007 at 7:33 PM. Reason : w]

3/16/2007 7:32:21 PM

And I continue to play the world's saddest song on the world's smallest violin...

3/16/2007 8:27:14 PM

there is not a damn thing wrong with firing them, there is no real scandal here

3/16/2007 8:36:55 PM

edit- im actually sad that he is going to go down for a political move gone wrong instead of all his shitting on the constitution. thats a much bigger offense in my mind.

[Edited on March 16, 2007 at 8:58 PM. Reason : e]

3/16/2007 8:57:22 PM

^^ fine - but Gonzales deserves to go for the other egregious abuses of power and corruption he's overseen in the past couple years

3/16/2007 9:40:54 PM

Quote :

"there is not a damn thing wrong with firing them, there is no real scandal here"

this isnt about the firings. this is about congress not being able to confirm appointees anymore.
it would be like congress saying that the president cannot veto their bills anymore. you understand nothing about this issue.

[Edited on March 16, 2007 at 10:22 PM. Reason : .]

3/16/2007 10:18:08 PM

Quote :

" there is not a damn thing wrong with firing them, there is no real scandal here"

From what I understand, there's nothing legally wrong with the firings, but it does seem unethical, and it is definitely unethical in the way he lied to try and cover it up.

3/16/2007 10:45:18 PM

What would Bush & Co. know about ethics in the first place?

3/16/2007 11:01:51 PM

this thread shows that people don't read the news

3/16/2007 11:25:27 PM

So, every time bush comes out and says he fully supports a high government official 100%, that means he is going to get fired the next day?

3/16/2007 11:45:50 PM

this shows that i dont care about made up liberal scandals

3/16/2007 11:51:46 PM

you are a partisan hack. you are no different than the people who idly sat by and watched Hitler lead Germany down the path of madness. you demand no accountability from any leader who you believe fits your political ideology.

[Edited on March 17, 2007 at 12:06 AM. Reason : .]

3/17/2007 12:00:38 AM

im not a partisan hack at all, in fact i pretty much hate the bush admin, i just dont see where this is a scandal. i mean with all the shit hes done im sure yall can find something better than this

3/17/2007 12:05:42 AM

Quote :

"i just dont see where this is a scandal"

If the rest of the world is screaming "bloody murder" but you don't think its a big deal, chances are you don't know the details. There's a reason why its a big deal. It should take less than a building exploding to get America's attention to being led down the road of tyranny.

3/17/2007 12:10:25 AM

see the whole road of tryanny thing is such a crock.....you act like bush is just going to stay in office after Jan 2009

3/17/2007 12:14:01 AM

well, its not like the Republicans have never tried to enact a plan to suspend the constitution and possibly a coup of a fully functioning democracy... right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQwVDP0WVTU

Iran Contra- watch the whole thing, you might learn something (important part starts a 1:10)


[Edited on March 17, 2007 at 12:25 AM. Reason : .]

3/17/2007 12:23:18 AM

I hate Republicans (and Democrats)

[Edited on March 17, 2007 at 1:15 AM. Reason : omg i must work for exxon...and the sierra club]

3/17/2007 1:11:51 AM

Quote :

"If the rest of the world is screaming "bloody murder" but you don't think its a big deal, chances are you don't know the details."

I beg to differ.

The rest of the world seems to still be screaming about Anna Nicole fucking Smith, and I will not think it's a big deal if you download every possible piece of information about her directly to my brain.

Public outcry =/= automatic importance

[Edited on March 17, 2007 at 2:27 AM. Reason : That said, fire the guy, it won't matter, a new crowd is coming in next year]

3/17/2007 2:27:03 AM

senior white house officials doing something illegal is a little more important than my former future wife anna nicole smith doing something illegal though.

and government is supposed to be the will of the people and what not, which makes public outcry important, especially when there is validating evidence.

3/17/2007 6:53:07 AM

I understand all of that. Fine, I'll try a different one.

Everyone was all in a frothy outrage about Clinton's slobbed knob, and that was not nearly so important as the coverage would lead one to believe.

3/17/2007 10:33:54 AM

Quote :

"i mean with all the shit hes done im sure yall can find something better than this"

I mean, this is a thread about AG Gonzales. If you wan't to find "something better than this", click your back button and do some browsing.

3/17/2007 10:40:31 AM

people have been fired for less

Signed,

Carol Lam, David Iglesias, H.E. Cummins, Paul Charlton, John McKay, Kevin Ryan, Daniel Bogden, Margaret Chiara

3/17/2007 11:04:47 AM

Gonzales find yourself another country to be part of.

3/17/2007 11:49:01 AM

^racist.

lets criminalize all politics. And lets elevate unwritten traditions to laws. Great move.

3/18/2007 7:53:40 PM

If you had a brain, you'd realize it was from a song

3/18/2007 8:53:14 PM

Gonzales did have the authority to fire the US attorneys in question--just as Bill Clinton had all of them fired--except one (now-Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff). Mark my words, though, it's the lie, if there was one, that's going to sink Gonzales and taint the Bush administration.

Gonzales made the unfortunate mistake of assigning a performance-related cause to the firings, which he did not have to do. That relatively small detail, I think, will be his undoing. And so it goes.

3/18/2007 11:26:30 PM

for the millionth time. resignations (forced or not) of political appointees at the start of a new administration is drastically different than firing your own appointees because they refuse to file false charges.

3/18/2007 11:55:28 PM

^ Sophistry.

3/19/2007 12:29:44 AM

^ no it's not. it's true.

Quote :

"At the beginning of each presidential term, it is traditional for anyone occupying a "political office" to turn in a signed letter of resignation. A political office is generally considered one that the occupant "serves at the pleasure of the President." If there is a new President from a different party, it is expected that all of the resignations would be accepted. The attorneys are then replaced by new political appointees, typically from the new President's party.[58] For example, President Clinton dismissed all 93 US attorneys when he came to office in 1993, and shortly after President George W. Bush took office in 2001, he received the resignations from 91 of 93 sitting U.S. attorneys.[59] In contrast to the 2006 dismissal event, prior administrations typically "cleaned house" at the outset of the presidential term; they very rarely terminated attorneys, whom they had previously appointed, for political reasons.[60] Presidents also have not been known to replace attorneys that they appointed during their first term in their second term in office. McClatchy Newspapers explains: "Mass firings of U.S. attorneys are fairly common when a new president takes office, but not in a second-term administration. Prosecutors are usually appointed for four-year terms, but they are usually allowed to stay on the job if the president who appointed them is re-elected."[58]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy#Terminations_under_previous_White_House_administrations

3/19/2007 6:48:15 AM

dear hooksaw,
you are wrong. rolling your eyes at facts might make you feel good, but it doesnt make your correct.
thanks for playing

3/19/2007 10:40:46 AM

^^unwritten tradition does not equal law people, its not hard.

3/19/2007 4:02:36 PM

^ you missed the point.
The point is that the "yeah, well, clinton fired all 93 of this attorneys" argument is not valid because that's what nearly all presidents do, at least when a new party comes to office. Regan did it (Bush Sr did not, presumably because he was fine with Regan's appointees), Clinton did it, and Bush already did it once in 2001, firing, i mean, "accepting the resignations of" (just like Clinton did) of 91 of the 93 appointees.

3/19/2007 4:10:53 PM

^^no one's taking him to court (yet). but his office deliberately misled the congress in testimony. THAT'S THE PROBLEM. well that and firing people who have traditionally held a semi-independent office because they weren't doing enough to damage the credibility of dem. candidates near election (or they were investigating the fraud of a republican near an election)

[Edited on March 19, 2007 at 4:11 PM. Reason : .]

3/19/2007 4:10:55 PM

It is worth noting, if it hasn't been noted before, that seven of the eight attorneys received positive performance reviews prior to their firing.

3/19/2007 4:17:34 PM

I don't see the problem, Bush should have fired many of them earlier, but because of his wanting to be a "uniter not a divider" he broke tradition and didn't fire people he should have. Well all hell has broken loose as a consequence of that naive move and now he has to fix it. Is it political, yes. Is it wrong, I don't see it. What is wrong is this stupid backpedaling, and that is what is going to get them in trouble not the actual "wrongdoing" (the firing).

Sorry I couldn't cut and paste this from Wiki, I know that would make it more valid.

3/19/2007 4:18:33 PM

well the attorneys didn't start speaking up until the attorney general's office started lying to congress about why the DA's were fired.

3/19/2007 4:24:31 PM

let me make it simple. Lying to congress bad. Firing attorneys who work at your discretion, no problemo.

If Gonzales lied about it under oath etc... then sure can them. Then find someone more aggressive who will actually do something about William Jefferson from Lousiana, or the NY Times leaks or, Harry Reed's crooked land deals, etc... There is plenty of corruption to prosecute, I haven't seen much action except to bury an innocent man under a process crime (Libby).

3/19/2007 4:32:28 PM

For real,

If these guys were doing sucha great job why have all these scandals not been prosecuted in the last 6 years?

3/19/2007 4:58:21 PM

Quote :

"Sorry I couldn't cut and paste this from Wiki, I know that would make it more valid."

nearly every single sentence from that wiki quote was cited from another source. Not to mention, they were just plain facts, not opinions.

hooksaw claimed that because "Clinton did it", it's ok for Bush to do it, when in fact, Clinton didn't do it. Clinton accepted the resignations of nearly all US attorneys when he took office, just as Regan did, and just as Bush did in 2001. Therefore, to continue to use that argument as justification for Bush firing 6 "non-loyal" attorneys 6 years into his Presidency is totally irrelevant.


^ well Carol Lam did prosecute Duke Cunningham. that's gotta count for something.

[Edited on March 19, 2007 at 5:15 PM. Reason : .]

3/19/2007 5:13:19 PM

and the drums beat louder

Quote :

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' hold on his job grew more uncertain Monday as the Senate debated removing his authority to unilaterally name U.S. attorneys and the White House said it merely hoped he would survive the tumult. Asked if Gonzales had contained the political damage from the firing of eight federal prosecutors, White House spokesman Tony Snow said, "I don't know.""

3/19/2007 7:03:40 PM

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3202.html

Quote :

"White House Seeking Gonzales Replacements Republican officials operating at the behest of the White House have begun seeking a possible successor to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose support among GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill has collapsed, according to party sources familiar with the discussions. Among the names floated Monday by administration officials are Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and White House anti-terrorism coordinator Frances Townsend. Former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson is a White House prospect. So is former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson, but sources were unsure whether he would want the job. Republican sources also disclosed that it is now a virtual certainty that Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, whose incomplete and inaccurate congressional testimony about the prosecutors helped precipitate the crisis, will also resign shortly. Officials were debating whether Gonzales and McNulty should depart at the same time or whether McNulty should go a day or two after Gonzales. Still known as "The Judge" for his service on the Texas Supreme Court, Gonzales is one of the few remaining original Texans who came to Washington with President Bush. In a sign of Republican despair, GOP political strategists on Capitol Hill said that it is too late for Gonzales' departure to head off a full-scale Democratic investigation into the motives and timing behind the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. "Democrats smell blood in the water, and (Gonzales') resignation won't stop them," said a well-connected Republican Senate aide. "And on our side, no one's going to defend him. All we can do is warn Democrats against overreaching." A main reason Gonzales is finding few friends even among Republicans is that he has long been regarded with suspicion by conservatives who have questioned his ideological purity. In the past, these conservatives warned the White House against nominating him for the Supreme Court. Now they're using the controversy over the firing of eight federal prosecutors to take out their pent-up frustrations with how he has handled his leadership at Justice and how the White House has treated Congress. Complaints range from his handling of immigration cases to his alleged ceding of power in the department to career officials instead of movement conservatives. Without embracing Gonzales, Republicans pointed out that presidents are free to replace U.S. attorneys at will. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) noted on MSNBC that some of those who were replaced "haven't whined or complained about it" and added, "I think that there's a lot of politics, but I don't think it's just on one side." But officials on Capitol Hill said that after the Justice Department failed to turn over a batch of e-mails about the prosecutors on Friday as expected, Republican senators became less likely to defend Gonzales or the White House. They feared the delay signaled more damaging information was in the pipeline. "We have a crisis where there doesn't need to be one, and now Democrats have an issue where they can open up the subpoena floodgates," said an exasperated Republican aide. "Once these investigations start, there always ends up being a lot of messy collateral damage." Now the White House is girding for a confirmation battle at the same time it is coping with Democrats' threats to subpoena aides to Bush, including senior adviser Karl Rove. Among the contenders to replace Gonzales, Chertoff is a former U.S. circuit judge for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Philadelphia. Before that, he was confirmed by the Senate in 2003 as assistant attorney general for the criminal division. Under this scenario, Chertoff's successor at the Department of Homeland Security might be Townsend, who now works in the White House as assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism. Townsend held senior Justice Department posts under Attorney General Janet Reno during the Clinton administration and is also a potential nominee for attorney general. Republican sources said other widely respected Republican lawyers have been considered for attorney general, although some of them may not be interested in taking the job. These names include: --Former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, the "Law & Order" star who is now considering seeking the Republican presidential nomination. --Olson, who was Bush's first solicitor general and now is a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington. --Larry Thompson, who has been general counsel of PepsiCo Inc. since leaving his first-term job as deputy to Attorney General John Ashcroft. --Retired federal judge Laurence H. Silberman, who was named by Bush to be co-chairman of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. --George J. Terwilliger III, a former deputy attorney general and acting attorney general who was a leader of Bush's legal team during the Florida election recount. Asked if Gonzales will stay, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said Monday: "We hope so. He has the confidence of the president." But Snow also revealed that the president had not talked to Gonzales since a conversation the two had when Bush was in Mexico last week."

BURN, BABY, BURN

3/19/2007 7:26:01 PM

Quote :

"Among the names floated Monday by administration officials are Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff"

good fucking lord, no

3/19/2007 7:35:11 PM

Psst. The nominee would have to get past the Democrats...

3/19/2007 7:41:37 PM

way to show that partisanship guys

3/19/2007 7:42:37 PM

Partisanship? This is the architect of American torture. Screw 'em.

3/19/2007 7:50:19 PM

^ yeah, sound about par for the course
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48446-2005Jan4.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-01-03-gonzales-hearing_x.htm

3/19/2007 8:12:57 PM

Quote :

"way to show that partisanship guys"

Way to stumble into the wrong section you dimwit. They have a place for you to post in, it's called the Trash Bin.

3/19/2007 8:51:37 PM

Nothing says partisanship like standing up against the powers that be trampling the very rights we supposedly base our entire system of government on.

[Edited on March 19, 2007 at 9:08 PM. Reason : /forgot my html basics]

3/19/2007 9:07:56 PM

Honkeyball: i like the sn.

3/19/2007 9:10:17 PM