From Katrina to Gonzales: Incompetence Reigns

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/15/1907/

From Katrina to Gonzales: Incompetence Reigns
by Marie Cocco

snip//

Intransigence is endemic to the Bush presidency and so we can predict with some certainty a legal wrangle over the subpoenas that is meant to do nothing more than stonewall the probes until the president repairs to his Texas ranch in 2009.

That is an awfully long time to leave the Justice Department reeling and rudderless. But we’ve long known that President Bush doesn’t care how or whether the federal government functions, so long as his functionaries are cared for and his partisan goals met.

The enduring mystery is why Republicans in Congress continue to play along.

In the argument over the failed Democratic procedural maneuver that attempted to set up the “no confidence” vote on the attorney general, Republican senators rose not to praise Gonzales but to bury discussion of his pathetic and increasingly bizarre performance beneath a diversionary blanket of rhetoric about the Democrats being partisan.

snip//

No one expects Republican lawmakers to be terribly concerned about what is emerging as a clear motive of the Bush Justice Department: using both the criminal and civil rights divisions to tip elections toward Republicans. This is an admission of terribly low expectations.

But they should at least be alarmed that one of the most vital government agencies—one, it must be noted, that plays a pivotal role in the much-ballyhooed war on terror—has been irreparably compromised during Gonzales’ tenure. In the thicket of Watergate, it was Republicans who finally withdrew their support for Richard Nixon and put their duty to the country ahead of allegiance to their party. Why do they not do so now?

[BOSSHOG]

1. The Party is utmost to conservatives not the country

So true and sad and pathetic. The Grand Old Party, right and wrong, the country be damned.

[Phredicles]

2. "stonewall the probes until the president repairs to his Texas ranch in 2009"

This reminds me: Do we have any legal recourse against these thugs once they leave office?

I heard somewhere once that impeachment can be brought even against former officials. But then, if we won't even try to impeach while they're still in office...

[reprobate]

4. Not being a constitutional attorney, or any kind of attorney for that matter,

still some things occur to me that I believe to be true.

While it is true that elected officials are protected from punishment for actions taken under their official title, I do not believe that to be true when those actions can be shown to be illegal. In that case they are stripped of protection because their actions can be shown to mot be undr official color of title.

If this is true as I believe it to be, it means that all these neocons can be brought to the bar of justice, including Bush/Chaney.

Though I will say again as I have stated in previous posts, that the impeachment that is most important is to impeach those Extreme Court justices that are responsible to appointing Bush to office in the first place, a decision that most scholars of constitutional law agree to be without justification.

After that is accomplished i t is possible for a Progressive president to appoint several new court justices that think like him/her, giving us a majority on the court, opening the way to prosecute the neocons.

[pat_k]

3. War crimes, terrorizing the nation with the threat of "mushroom clouds. . .

. . . .in 45 minutes, illegally spying under color of law aren't incompetence. These are violations of law so grave that violators are subject to the punishment of death (U.S. Code Title 18 section 2441, War Crimes and Title 18, Section 844 paragraph e. Bomb Threat.)

Those we gave the power to impeach and remove are willfully refusing to act. They are chosing to leave the MASSIVE power of the American presidency in the hands of men they know to be reckless criminals. Their dereliction of duty; their refusal to "support and defend" is itself an intolerable crime against our constitutional democracy.

Instead of using the power we delegated to them fight for the impeachment and removal of Bush and Cheney, Nancy "off the table" Pelosi and the so-called "leadership" are doing everything in their power to SUPPRESS any Member who threatens to take up the fight. They are promoting propaganda that impeachment can't, won't, or shoudn't happen. They seek to silence the Americans who are demanding action. This intolerable behavior is FAR more devastating to the nation than anything the 'bad guys' can do to us.

They can redeem themselves tomorrow by taking up the impeachment fight.

If the 110th Congress fails to impeach, the nation will pay a terrible price for decades to come. The Members who failed us will each pay their own personal, moral, and political price, trivial though it may be compared to costs of their failure to the rest of us.