My feelings about Gonzales are identical to those that I harbor about the President. Neither are stupid men, they appear dense because they don’t give a rat’s ass what anyone else thinks. People of this nature follow their own opinion in all things, not caring for who or what was in their way. Gonzales basically showed the investigating committee a great big double-bird with a “f*ck you” on top.
So, I’ve changed my mind. On sober second thought, it occurs to me that when I find myself in enthusiastic agreement with “White House insiders” and the National Review that Alberto Gonzales disgraced himself yesterday, I may have missed something important.
Assuming the president watched so much as 10 minutes of his attorney general being poleaxed by even rudimentary questions from the Senate judiciary committee, it strains credulity to believe that Gonzales still has Bush’s “full confidence.”
Until you stop to consider that the president wasn’t watching the same movie as the rest of us and that Gonzales wasn’t reading from the same script. Perhaps what we witnessed yesterday was in fact a tour de force, a home run for the president’s overarching theory of the unitary executive.
A unitary executive can be a great thing when done by someone of character and intellect. Such power in the hands of a petulant fratboy, however, can lead to wreck and ruin. How many decades are our children going to have to work to repair the damage done by this administration?
Suble?
And the “I serve at the pleasure of the President” is his way of daring dems to do something about it.
I actually felt Gonzalez came of as both clueless and obstructive at the same time. You could see panic on his face numerous times because he simply did not have the answers that even the Republicans were asking, and at other times he was just stonewalling for his boss.
I didn’t see the Machiavellian master that you, and the author of this piece, seem to have watched. I saw a man who relies on underlings to do his job and who, at the same time, is being placed in the role of blocker by his own boss.
I like men who say ‘This is what I am going to do because of reason X, and I dont give a damn what you think about it because its what I want to do’
The idea that Bush still totally supports the people around him says two things to me. 1: Bush is loyal and believes in some natural ‘rightness’ to his first impulse. Admirable at best, worrisome at worse. 2: Has to be really dense, and/or, perceptive enough to consider a situation and yet not let on completely.
I have known wonderfully smart people that come across moronic, or dense, and it was often an act for 99% of the world. I’m not saying Bush is this, I tend towards the actual moronic side in his case.
Gonzales on the other hand I dont know much about, but I like the idea of him giving congress the finger and saying ‘It’s executive issue’ since the Demcratic congress is just after score points and people seem to know it.
Where he screwed up is he didnt give them the finger from the start and stick by that. The fact is is doesnt matter why they were fired, they felt like doing it, and the system this nation has functioned under for many moons has function just like that. The issue was the new complexity from the Patriot Act which would have allowed him to apoint replacements without verification. Killing that was a good thing.
Smartalix your children will learn about Bush someday and with the hindsight on history I believe it will look more favorably than recent media has been. The up to the minuet, around the clock, flashes of bad images from Iraq (valid or not) have drown out so much in the past years that it will take years to learn about after this is all settled.
3,
Oh, he’s far from a master of anything, he’s just not stupid. He made sure his testimony was legal under his interpretation of it, and basically challenged them to do their worst.
Smartalix your analysis has a ring of truth. This is an attempted “home run for the president’s overarching theory of the unitary executive.”. Let’s hope the “cks and balance” design of our government finally engages itself and prevents this.
#3, Machiavellian masters they are not, but they certainly “wana be”
This administration is all about power and nothing more. They expend enormous amount of effort telling people “Trust Us”, successfully; since too many dumb ass Americans trusted and re-elected them.
Mr Gonzalez can dismiss whatever he wants. The proof is in the pudding. Will he be in his job in, oh, 4 weeks? I hope not, but if he is it will be generally a bad thing. A bi-partisan bad thing. Mr Gonzalez has done a very bad job at almost every aspect of this affair and to continue in place stinks for us.
No 4. I am sure if Gonzalez was a Clintonista you would be loathe to spew your nonsense. Study your own country’s system of government before you so quickly give it all up for your imbecilic notions of something or other — I don’t know what exactly, but I do know it’s no way to run a country.
And don’t forget, a Republican Congressman called one of these judges and when he was told that the judge was not going to prosecute some Democrats, that judge was fired. That is not the contract that the Executive Branch has with its appointees. That you think it is speaks volumes and is scary.
#7.
I agree with your first point totally. The world is likely better off if he just goes.
You lost me after that. Whats the Clintonista reference about? Are we refering to Clinton firing all the prosecutors, even ones that were actively investigating cases he had ties to? *THATS* Far more a story than this Gonzales nonsense.
I’ll bet you money that if you fired any random subset from a group, some would belong to the Democratic party. If you want to charge that they fired people strickly because he was a Democrate, prove it or stop saying it. This may have been done and I’ve not seen it. Please point me there if you have seen it and are using that to support your comments.
This is akin to race baiting, except its Party baiting. Had one of the fired been black would Gonzales and Bush by necessity be rasists as well?
“Study your own country’s system of government before you so quickly give it all up for your imbecilic notions of something or other ”
What the hell does this mean? I dont have any notions about giving anything up for something ‘else’, and I’m not sure what ‘else’ you think I might be promoting here. My point is that exactly whats happening now has always been allowed to happen and what we have is a pretty good system when you study history (which I have)
4,
I strongly believe history will take a very dim view of Bush the lesser’s administration.
#4, After Bush and his band of incompetent bastards gets through with this country (and then flee to his compound in Paraguay), about the only thing any children here will be able to learn is how to scratch out a bare existence in the rubble of this once-great nation.
Just remember, when you vote for someone, don’t vote for only the candidate, please consider the people with whom the candidate will surround himself. In Bush’s case, one would think he would have taken some advice from his father, Pres. no. 41.
OTHO, Mass. still has Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick. He’ll be there until he dies, hopefully under water. (I’m now donning Nomex and scuba gear)
Just my 2 cents (2 new gold dollars) worth.
I don’t know about Mr. Gonzales but President Bush seems to be a man who lets nothing interfere with what he “believes.” He just does not let facts or evidence to the contrary move him. His father held out a lifeline to him with the Iraq Study Report and his son pointedly ignored it. Can’t imagine what the elder Bush thinks of his son.
My opinion of the President has been that virtually nothing he has done in his adult life came about without the help of his father’s friends. And he has not done well at any of those things. The tragedy is somehow he was elected President, rising to a level “above” his incompetence.
Can’t help but think it is time for the President to say, “Alberto, you are doing a heck of a job,” and then show him the door. A shame the same cannot be done for President Bush.
Gonzoles should be canned for his incredibly bad memory.
If any employee of ming couldn’t remember so many important parts of his duties, the door would hit his butt on the way out.
OK, everybody forgets stuff but he has a responsibility to take notes (or have them taken) and be on top of stuff like this –that’s why he gets the big bucks.
Saying “I don’t remember” over and over again, doesn’t cut it.
Cheney and Rove don’t care if Bush and his cronies rise , fall , twist or turn on the spit of an oversight committee. These seemingly important players are just carrying out orders. In this instance Rove was simply making some adjustments to compliment his plans to win the 08 elections. Kyle Sampson and the rest of these pawns, all the way up to the bumbling brat in the White House. are only there as long as they serve the sinister purposes of the architects and whoever is is in the shadows pulling their strings.
if you continue to self deprocate america/yourselves
canada can’t play out loud
Some people SEEM Dumb and ARE.
Some seem dumb and Arent…
Some seemsmart/dumb but only have knowledge in certian areas, and the rest is (like), Billy can you program my VCR, and he runs a corporation.
I HATE specialized intelligence.. I can be a Highly paid Lawyer, but I STILL cant tie my shoes. And I wear slipon’s..
Its the idea that there are many sides to an Issue…
Guns have a USE. Rifles are used for hunting, Automatics are used in War. Pistols have FEW uses, and they DONT include Hunting.. TRY firing a pistol with a LARGE enough caliber to HIT at range, AND knock a Deer down, and kill it. YOU WONT have a wrist left.
WAR is a terrible thing. those that PREACH war, are terrible people. Farmers dont wage war, and dont Care who runs the country(IF you leave them alone, dont give them a reason to change).
The War in Iraq, is the subject of Many concerns. But Bush, entered it as IF’ “Im the Boss of the world, and we told you to ‘DO THIS’, and you didnt.” This is as bad as a principle useing Marshall punishment on a Teen, that was disobedient(he chewd GUM).
#8 My point was that you declared in favor of Bush’s choices and so it is reasonable to suggest you are predisposed to support his appointees (one of his decisions history will not look favorably upon, you state). I posit that you would not be saying this if Gonzalez was a Clinton appointee. Moreover, I am reminding you that there is a system of government here that works, but it is not the easiest system of government — there’s a reason why it was not implemented in Iraq and other nascent democracies.
So your whoops from the peanut gallery to Mr Gonzalez stating he “did not recall” about 45 times is basically a cheer for an utter perversion of your system of government. It’s an embarrassment that none of us would put up with in real life. I don’t mind Alberto Gonzalez being wrong, stupid or both, but I do mind him getting keep his job when his culpability is established.
So I simply chasten you to think about this way before you get behind at as another “eff you” to the liberals.
Gonzalez is far different from Rumsfeld. He just didn’t know why people were fired until much later. He managed to turn a non-issue into a scandal, since none of these guys were fired for political purposes. I mean the primary evidence that this was political is supposed to be Carol Lam, investigating Duke Cunningham and Jack Abramoff. Well, Dem Senator Dianne Feinstein was very critical of Lam awhile back, though now she’s jumping aboard the scandal bandwagon and praising her.
Maybe this is a Bush manufactured scandal to distract people from the real story. We’ve already seen Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame lead Dems on a wild goose chase and away from the real WMDs story.
George Washington couldn’t tell a lie; Richard Nixon couldn’t tell the truth … and Gonzo can’t recall the difference.