Thu, May 31 2007
THE REALITY OF CHINA AND THE USA
Thu, May 31 2007
REAL EROSION OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA
Justice, 'tied at hip' to White House, hurts respect for law
USA Today- Daniel Metcalfe worked at the Justice Department for more than three decades - through seven presidents, Democratic and Republican, liberal and conservative. But he recently told Legal Times that Alberto Gonzales did something no other attorney general had managed during Metcalfe's long career: In just two years, Gonzales "shattered" the department's "strong tradition of independence" and left it "artificially tied at the hip" to the White House.
Much of the change took place almost imperceptibly, except to insiders such as Metcalfe, who headed the department's Office of Information and Privacy in Washington. But the controversy surrounding the firing of nine federal prosecutors last year has given the public a rare glimpse inside the nation's top law enforcement agency.
The picture isn't pretty. It shows a department run by a cadre of young, underqualified GOP operatives who inserted politics into everything from hiring career lawyers to firing federal prosecutors to choosing how to enforce the law. Such partisanship strikes at the heart of the department's mission - to prosecute crimes and uphold the law without fear or favor.
While the department has never been entirely insulated from politics, its backbone of career lawyers and 93 U.S. attorneys, whom once appointed are rarely fired, can ensure a high level of independence - but only if the attorney general and the president keep political meddling in check. Gonzales and
President Bush have failed to do this.
Despite bipartisan calls for Gonzales' resignation, he clings to his job, supported by Bush, who says the attorney general hasn't done anything wrong. So far as is known, Gonzales hasn't broken any laws, but to say he has done no wrong is to say that it's fine to treat the Justice Department as an agent of White House political operations. The nation's chief law enforcement officer should be held to a higher standard than that.
Testimony, e-mails, interviews and news accounts reveal a pattern of mismanagement that justifies the extraordinary "no confidence" vote on the attorney general planned next month in the Senate:
•Monica Goodling, Gonzales' former senior counselor, admitted last week that she "crossed the line" by regularly examining the party affiliations of candidates for jobs as career prosecutors, immigration judges and other non-political slots. That's improper and potentially illegal.
•At least two of the fired U.S. attorneys - highly regarded David Iglesias of New Mexico and John McKay of Seattle - ran afoul of the White House for alleged failures to pursue voter fraud aggressively enough. Prosecuting vote fraud can be a legitimate priority. But the White House involvement - Bush and his political adviser, Karl Rove, passed along complaints from Republicans about prosecutors or missed chances to pursue fraud cases - makes the pursuit look partisan.
Voter fraud does not appear to be widespread -and certainly not as important as investigating terrorism, organized crime, political and business corruption or other Justice Department priorities. The emphasis on it raises questions about whether Rove was calling the shots as part of a GOP strategy to suppress Democratic turnout in certain key elections. The White House says Rove can provide answers - if it's done in private, he's not under oath and there's no transcript of his testimony. Congressional investigators are right to reject such absurd conditions.
•Since 2001, when Bush took office, Justice headquarters has loaded up on midlevel political appointees: The number rose from 36 in 1997, President Clinton's fifth year in office, to 56 in Bush's fifth year, according to a study by Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. (The Justice Department says it can't verify those numbers.)
In such a politically charged atmosphere, is it any wonder that Gonzales' then-chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, considered whether U.S. attorneys were "loyal Bushies" in deciding which ones to fire? Or that Gonzales, when he was White House counsel, tried to get his hospitalized predecessor,
John Ashcroft, to approve a warrantless wiretapping program that top Justice officials thought was illegal?
The non-partisanship that lawyers such as Metcalfe prized must be preserved if the public is to trust the cases the department investigates and the rights it protects. A mountain of evidence suggests that this White House doesn't respect the department's independence, and this attorney general isn't up to the job of guarding it.Tue, May 29 2007
SO ANYWAY
I'll have to figure out the pic upload glitch later.
Meantime, Dubya is still fucking up the world, which is still melting down into radioactive gravy, and richpigges are still making bucks off the little guys.
Tue, May 29 2007
NEW PIC TEST
Having trouble uploading pics automagically. Plus, it looks like we lost the full archives for May, regardless of what the menu says.
Shit.
Tue, May 29 2007
CRASHED THE BLOG AGAIN, DAMMIT
Fall down and go BOOM. Some days, technology is NOT our friend, kiddies.
This entry is just to make sure everything is up and running okay, and the archives can be accessed.
Oh yeah, Charles Nelson Reilly died today... so long, Chuck, you screaming Mary you...
