I don't know anything about Thompson, but Chertoff, Townsend, and Olson are real losers. They're running out of loyalist hacks.

It will be former Senator Rick Santorum. It is a slam-dunk.

Ted Olsen? Yeah, no smell there!

It is hard to see recruiting from within the very narrow circle that has so shown for 6 years to be corrupt and self-reinforcing in that corruption, lack of judgement, loss of memory, I would hope they would look outside for an A.G.

They don't know there is an "outside".

Basically, they hate America. But they sho' do like good pretzels!

More pathetic retreads. Good God, can't we just impeach Bush and Cheney and say hello to President Pelosi? Please???

Ah, Kevin.

Good job, guys.

We just lost another good man in the government. It's not as though highly qualified folks are breaking down the doors to earn government wages.

Plus he was a good role model for the Latino community. I wouldn't be surprised if rascim was involved.

I hope your proud of yourselves.

Politico reported that they are also looking at Fred Thompson, the Senator/actor. Yeah, bottem of the barrel scratching, alright.

GENERAL Gonzalez?

Remember the references to GENERAL Ashcroft?

Typical of chicken hawks, longing for the trappings of tough-guy soldier life . . .

Ken Starr would be the best choice to replace Gonzales.

I'd suggest promoting one of the U.S. Attorneys, but they've already winnowed the field of candidates quite a bit.

Fill in your own joke in comments.

How about Fred Dalton Thompson? Not only is he running for president, former minority counsel in the Watergate hearings -- but he plays an AG on tv! This is mostly about keeping up appearances, and he's bright, articulate, clean, ... .

I vote for Chalabi.

He captures the competence and integrity of this Administration perfectly.

If Bush wants the scandal to end, there's an easy way to do it. Blame Gonzalez, then nominate one of the ousted US Attorneys.

If Bush were clean, he'd nominate the one that brought down Cunningham.

But he's not clean, and he doesn't dare replace Gonzalez with a non-hack. There's too much stuff buried -- too many illegal decisions about torture, about wiretapping -- they've got to put another hack in there or else the new guy might decide to blow the whistle.

Not one of those guys are going to make it into replacing Gonzo. (BTW - did you know that Bush's nickname for Gonzo is "Fredo"? as in "Fredo Corleone"? That's right up there with "Turdblossom.")

If Bush lets go of Gonzales, the BEST he is going to be able to get is the 2007 version of Archibald Cox of Watergate fame as AG - someone who is acceptable to the other side. And anyone acceptable to the other side is going to be anathema to the Conspiracy.

His only hope will be a "recess appointment" of one of these guys, and that really will be the equivalent of the Saturday Night Massacre if he tries it.

Gurgle...gurgle...gurgle...

Memo to righties: next time, will you find a candidate whose resume doesn't read: "dead drunk fof first 44 years of my life, bankrupted every company I founded, only reason I'm not living in a box under a freeway overpass is because daddy's friends bail me out whenever I fuck up - special attributes: knows how to blow up frogs with firecrackers and thinks it's fun."

I mean, you morons had a trainwreck on your hands from the beginning. The only questions were when and where!

Well, they managed to take their trainwreck worldwide.
Guess W wanted to outdo daddy AND Tricky Dick.

Well, as much as it would please me for Gonzales to get the boot, another part of me thinks that it would be evading the real point. There is nothing that Alberto Gonzales has done that was not done for the benefit of George W. Bush. It seems bizarre to me that he should be fired for actions that were ultimately initiated by the President.

The only way it would make sense for Gonzales to be punished separately from the President is if it could plausibly be argued that he was a rogue player acting without the approval of his employer. Does anyone actually believe that?

I don't believe Gonzales takes a piss w/out the approval of Bush.

Another angle on this is that Bush views the DOJ like some business, and he can fire anyone for whatever reason even if they're in the middle of a sensitive investigation and they just had a good performance review.
He doesn't get that it's inappropriate and unethical, even if technically legal.

Michael Chertoff was the one Bush holdover US Attorney in 1993 who wasn't replaced (at the request of Bill Bradley, according to Wikipedia). One has to wonder whether there was a deeper story there.

I could see him replacing Gonzales. In his current position he's a mismatch, but he was a decent-enough US Attorney.

I want GWB to nominate Ann Coulter, just for the humor value.

Ringo has a good point.
Republicans have been talking about running the Government like a business for years. Well now they are! Like their own privately owned business!

I have to hand it to Egbert. Totally wrong but still sneeringly condescending. Pinche Abu Gonezales makes Mexican Americans look stupid - that's why my latino wife hates his coconut ass.
BTW - chinga tu madre, Al.

I want Gonzales to be disbarred. He should have kept that state supreme court justice job in Tejas. It was a lifelong plumb. Now he will go down with nothing but ignominy.

This is truly a classic Catch 22.

Anyone who's enough of a hack to protect the president is sure to be rejected by the Senate. And anyone who has enough integrity to be confirmed by the Senate is sure to turn around and investigate the president.

It's been enough of a paradox to keep Gonzales in the job... so far.

Cheney could appoint himself.

Criminals rarely change their MO in mid-career.

I'm rooting for Victoria Toensing to be nominated.

I want GWB to nominate Ann Coulter, just for the humor value.
Posted by: Disputo on March 19, 2007

You owe me a soda.
'Cos that made me shoot mine out of my nose.

repug abd brojo beat me.

Good rôle model???

A lieing ass who supports torture and suspension of habeas corpus.

Yes! He should be disbarred. No appeal.

Egbert. You really are an ass. You've proved it.

Can't they just use the Patriot Act to put in an interim AG for the rest of Bush's term?

If not, isn't congress planning on a two or three day break for Easter? Why not put in a recess apointee.

We need to start making a list of the grossly incompetent people Bush has put in key spots. Cheney would head the list, then you have Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Gonzales, Brownie, and he tried to get away with an obviously substandard Miers, but was shot down not because of her incompetence, but because of her presumed lack of ideological purity, this from his base.

Bush himself, of course, is a grossly incompetent person we put in place, or allowed in place, or however you want to phrase it, so he doesn't really count. Incompetents hiring incompetents. It's kind of Peter Principleish.

I should have added that these are the people who have been outed as incompetent, whose incompetence you can make a pretty airtight argument for. How many are left, just waiting to be uncovered, working their disastrous magic in the highest levels of government?

House Judiciary doc dump in progress.

Go check it out and see if you can be the first person on your block to find the smoking gun that leads to Bush and Cheney's impeachment.

Gen. Gonzales????

Gimme a fuckin' break . . .

Then again, if he's a general, does that mean he can participate in the Great Leader's Glorious Liberation of Mesopotamia? If so, he can keep his rank for all I care - bye, Gonzo!

I wouldn't be surprised if rascim was involved.

I wouldn't be surprised if rascim was involved, either, but I'd be really surprised if there was racism involved.

And qualfied? Give me a break - the guy probably has the thinnest resume of any Attorney General in US history. Most of the briefs he's written have amounted to him explaining that Bush possesses unfettered power.

What a qualification.

And if he's so qualified, why did he lie in front of Congress?

Chalabi! Chalabi! Chalabi!

And we will welcome him with rose petals!

Chalabi! Chalabi! Chalabi!

The people's choice!
The people's voice!

Victoria Toensing is a great suggestion. Joe Digenova is also good. Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, and Jack Abramoff are looking for work.
It would be great to see Ted Olsen being questioned under oath, or for that matter, any of that pack of Bushies.

Brojo, I am pretty sure that Texas SS Justices are elected to six-year terms. Could be wrong tho - the billet in Texas was a long time ago.

The last page of the first PDF released by the House Judiciary Comm is a letter from Asst AG Moschella to Issa explaining that Lam has been "vigorously enforc[ing]" the immigration laws.

Nice to have the DOJ backing up Lam.

I wouldn't be surprised if rascim was involved.

Mendacity, incompetence, and vainglory are not racial traits, they are human ones. Humans who exhibit them often come to bad ends because they are mendacious, incompetent or vainglorious, no matter what race they are.

A Poem for the American Fascists Posing as Patriots, By Elmo

I will not give you my freedom because
you are scared...
You cannot use my name to wage
wars undeclared.
You cannot take my values to claim
as your own...
And then run to evil like a dog
to a bone.

I will not give you solace for the
pity you seek...
For unlike me you are very,
very weak.
You will not see the day where your
side has won...
For you must be many, while I am
just one.

You can spread propaganda, get the
masses to agree...
But try as you might, you will
never own me.
For I am the echo of freedom's
call...
Neither silenced by agenda, nor the
rule of law.

You can never defeat me, let me
tell you why...
For I am the land, the sea, and
the sky.
I am the mountain's high and the
valley's low...
I am that which is freedom's
soul.

I am the one who lifts the
vial...
To reveal your lies and damn them
to hell.
I am the answer to why you
are scared...
I am the essence of your worst
nightmare.

For I am freedom...

I am America.

I wouldn't be surprised if rascim was involved.

I agree. The GWB admin has a penchant for using minorities both as insulation from scrutiny and as fall guys when their crimes are eventually revealed.

Bob Schieffer on CBS had a good line yesterday, to the effect that service in the Bush Justice Department appeared to do more damage to the human memory than Alzheimer's Disease.

repug abd?

Anything but Democrat? Give me a fucking break.

I should have known state supreme court justices are not life time appointments. Tough luck Abu.

Thank you, elmo.

More from the doc dump:

The first doc in PDF 2-1 contains a list of FAQs that USAttys who are being forced to resign may ask.

Oh Kevin, now you've got me worried!

Just when I figured old Gonzo would be out any day, here you quote my Congressman, Tom Feeney (R-Abramoff). This is a guy who did golf junkets to Scotland with Tom Delay. He lives two freakin' blocks from me; I've seen him on a number of occasions. Take it from me, Tom Feeney is wrong about everything. Plus, he's dumb as dirt. So when Feeney starts pushing old Abu Gonzales out, then maybe he's safe after all.

More from the doc dump:

Margaret Chiara USAtty MI wrote to McNulty:

"[Michael Elston] further informed me that I should expect contact from the WH requesting my resignation as USA shortly after the Nov 7 elections. He could offer no explanation other than that I erroneously assumed that good service guaranteed longevity because other USAs have been asked for their resignation without cause.... While I live in hope that this dire prediction is untrue, I am contacting you because I need assistance to remain in federal service with a comparable compensation or, quite frankly, I will lose everything that I have been working toward for the past five years...."

Nice.... Reap the rewards of crony capitalism.

your welcome, notthere. drive on.

Sorry notthere, I am a bit paranoid this evening.

If Gonzo is Fredo, who gets to take him on the last boat ride?

If Gonzo is Fredo, who gets to take him on the last boat ride?

Neil? Marvin? Cheney?

To access the latest DOJ email/document dumps and all the latest news, hearings, legal filings, emails and other essential documents on the Bush DOJ prosecutor firings, see:
"The U.S. Attorney Scandal Documents."

Gonzalez' lying has put Bush in an agonizing double bind. This could be the one that brings the Bush regime down.

I want GWB to nominate Ann Coulter, just for the humor value.

No, I think it's time we gave that job to a woman.

My candidate is Barack Obama.

Why not?

In his campaign so far, Obama has managed to cast himself as anything and everything, depending only upon time, place and audience.

Why couldn't he add Republican Attorney General to his growing reportoire?

Besides, it would be amusing and instructive to have as attorny general for a time a character who combines all the attributes of Iago with those of Nathan Detroit.

Wouldn't you say?

How about McKay, Iglesias, & Lam? Let the 3 of them decide between themselves who does which job, as there are 3 top positions open within the week. They would also probably be confirmed by the Senate.

"We just lost another good man in the government."

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

I think "B" nailed it, upthread at 11:04. Easter/Passover recess begins March 30. Look for VO5 to decide he wants to spend more time with his family, effective mere hours after the Senate recesses. With any luck, we'll meet our new AG by lunchtime on April 2 (the official federal observation of April Fools' Day...). As near as I can tell, such an appointment would leave the new guy in place through the end of the 110th Congress - that is, the end of Chimpy's term.

Norman Rogers: "It will be former Senator Rick Santorum. It is a slam-dunk."

Now there's a step up in quality -- from deviously incompetent to obviously insipid.

Remind me never to hire Normie as my personnel director.

Pat Fitzgerald for Attorney General!

If only Gannon could take a crash course in the law.

Friday is coming - Gonzales, Golgatha - such a lovely scene. And then on Sunday - Yes, this administration needs a new Passion Play.

Gen. Gonzales????

I was going to point out the same thing. I can't remember exactly when this first started happening, in which these two-bit appointed turds whose titles included that modifier started calling themselves 'General', but I remember the media slavishly parroting it, and myself being thoroughly nauseated. I distinctly recall 'General Ashcroft', and I'm pretty sure this titular misuse didn't happen prior to Bush.

Not that real generals are, generally speaking, always worth any less contempt, but at least they have the rank and, presumably, some sort of experience to go with it. They aren't all fat, pasty, Goebbels wannabes.

Militarist shits.

I should get my Nazis right; I meant Himmler.

Rather cross with you, thirdone - It is Golgotha.

Ah, to see him slowly twisting.

Even Nixon chose a man of integrity and independence like Elliot Richardson in the middle of major scandal. I think the American people are entitled to have the Senate demand the same from Bush.

"We need to start making a list of the grossly incompetent people Bush has put in key spots. Cheney would head the list ... "

Posted by: Steppen on March 19, 2007 at 11:17 PM

Tho' I agree with your sentiments, Steppen; I think a minor correction is needed: AFAIR, VP Cheney put himself in his "key spot" - remember Shotgun Dick's infamous "short list" (really short) for the VP slot in 2000?

So sad that most folks in life, are not able to work in an environment for which they are able to truly enjoy their expertise.

Ah, to be both grossly incompetent and highly paid for such expertise, Shrub has created an environment which keeps on giving.

The "General" thing goes back further than Ashcroft. I remember John Mitchell being referred to as "General" in some of the Watergate documents. Not the best precedent, but not original with Aschcroft.

I have to say that Fred Thompson is one of the few Republicans I trust. I disagree with him, sure, but I trust him not to swallow partisan BS from Bush and regurgitate it to the American people.

This does not come from watching him on TV and movies (although his Law & Order character was supposedly very close to him in real life); when I was interning in the Senate I heard good things about him and his office.

Ted Olson? I hope they do nominate him, just to see the Democrats nail his ass to the floor. Payback's a bitch.

I don't see how any of these losers would get through a Senate confirmation hearing. But, as noted above, the WH NEEDS a hack, partisan, ass-kisser Bush loyalist. They are in a tight spot: they MUST have someone who is more concerned about his party and his president than someone who has the least respect for law, integrity, the Constitution, etc. But how is such a person to get through the confirmation hearings?

The WH may have no other choice but to keep Abu Gonzalez where he is and ride out the scandal. Hey, it's not like another one won't be making an appearance soon! Or they might try to finagle a recess appointment. Are we SURE they didn't sneak something into the Patriot Act that lets them forego the confirmation for AG?

Several years ago, the DA of LA County became Attorney General for California - He was also a Brig or Maj General in the National Guard - Don't recall if anyone ever called him General General.

March 19, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist

Don’t Cry for Reagan
By PAUL KRUGMAN

As the Bush administration sinks deeper into its multiple quagmires, the personality cult the G.O.P. once built around President Bush has given way to nostalgia for the good old days. The current cover of Time magazine shows a weeping Ronald Reagan, and declares that Republicans “need to reclaim the Reagan legacy.�

But Republicans shouldn’t cry for Ronald Reagan; the truth is, he never left them. There’s no need to reclaim the Reagan legacy: Mr. Bush is what Mr. Reagan would have been given the opportunity.

In 1993 Jonathan Cohn — the author, by the way, of a terrific new book on our dysfunctional health care system — published an article in The American Prospect describing the dire state of the federal government. Changing just a few words in that article makes it read as if it were written in 2007.

Thus, Mr. Cohn described how the Interior Department had been packed with opponents of environmental protection, who “presided over a massive sell-off of federal lands to industry and developers� that “deprived the department of several billion dollars in annual revenue.� Oil leases, anyone?

Meanwhile, privatization had run amok, because “the ranks of public officials necessary to supervise contractors have been so thinned that the putative gains of contracting out have evaporated. Agencies have been left with the worst of both worlds — demoralized and disorganized public officials and unaccountable private contractors.� Holy Halliburton!

[snip]

Ringo has a good point.
Republicans have been talking about running the Government like a business for years. Well now they are! Like their own privately owned business!

Posted by: Monk-in-Training

The problem being that the business in question is money laundering and other questionable activites the likes of which even Tony Soprano might balk at.

They've just about bankrupted the country. But obviously that's not a pressing concern since the loot is sequestered elsewhere.

Our elites have meanwhile been completely coopted by tax cuts and mortgage deductions and other such perquisites to the extent that nothing beyond their own charmed circle of existence really registers. And they're royally pissed off at only being the Near Rich. The 300,000 households whose earnings now total the combined earnings of the bottom 120,000,000.

Anyone out there vote for a reprise as AG by the great Janet Reno?

Nice attempt at distraction, mhr, but I'm afraid the Russian judge only gave it a 3.

I have to say that Fred Thompson is one of the few Republicans I trust. I disagree with him, sure, but I trust him not to swallow partisan BS from Bush and regurgitate it to the American people.

I read similar things in 1999 and 2000 by people who knew Bush, who knew him as some kind of backslapping, go along to get along guy who wouldn't rock the boat.

Bush himself is a weak minded disaster, sure, but people are underestimating the extent that the leader of a party is captive to that party, particularly the Republicans with their near-monolithic base. The Republican base wants this stuff, wants militarism and conflict; if they didn't none of it would have happened. Fred Thompson, the saint-like hardass Rudy Giuliani, anyone you can name is going to have to please the Republican base, and if they don't they'll be gone. So they'll do it and, in that way we humans have, they'll end up convincing themselves that they do what they do not out of political expediency, but because it's the right thing to do, and they believed it all along. The primary difference between Thompson and Bush or Giuliani is that he would give more polished speeches.

how about simon cowell?

The Republican base wants this stuff, wants militarism and conflict; if they didn't none of it would have happened.

I'm not sure that's true, at least in the sense of overt major war as in Iraq. I don't think the broad base of the Republican Party is any more bloodthirsty now than under Reagan, who managed to do much better at keeping them satisfied (while doing much better at containing opposition) with largely rhetorical conflict, punctuated by short, sharp real conflicts at least where the US was directly concerned, rather than backing one party or another in a guerrilla war without overt direct involvement.

I think the driving force between the degree of major, actual conflict in this administration isn't the Republican base but the neoconservative elites that have maneuvered themselves into positions of influence. They want war to restructure the world to their ideal. The base just wants shows of strength that can reinforce their feelings of national superiority. The elites use the desires of the base to get their war, they are not driven by the base.

The elites use the desires of the base to get their war, they are not driven by the base.

Word. If you look at prewar polling, it weas fairly consistent in showing that support for Bush's desired war with Iraq fell if 1) it didn't pose a "WMD" threat to the US, 2) didn't have ties to al Qaeda, and 3) if more than 1,000 US soldiers lost their lives.

Now, those polls certainly gave this Administration cues on how to sell the war (don't follow polls, bah!) -- Mushroom cloud! Saddam bin Laden! Greeted as liberators! -- but the fatal flaw is that, now that it's beyond debate that 1) it didn't pose a "WMD" threat to the US, 2) didn't have ties to al Qaeda, and 3) more than 3,000 US soldiers have lost their lives -- not to mention endless USNG deployements, stop loss, and shitty treatment of wounded soldiers and vets -- support for the war has collapsed. You don't say.

"Pat Fitzgerald for Attorney General!"

Actually, it seems to me that a smart Democratic presidential candidate would suggest that, upon election, he/she would appoint Patrick Fitzgerald Attorney General, to prove that the office (and the DOJ) should not be politicized. A smart Republican candidate could do the same, but at his peril, I think.

Ed

I yield the balance of my time.