Remember Francoise Duclos? She was communications director for Canada’s then prime minister Jean Chretien. In 2002, she famously though undiplomatically called George W. Bush “a moron.” Mr. Bush, the” War President,” “the Decider,” and now “the commander guy” has spent the last 5 years proving Ms. Duclos right. Alas.
By percyslogthrop-mail | May 4, 2007 9:06:10 AM |
Eugene Robinson’s column Washington Post

I fear Mr. Cohen is engaging in wishful thinking again, as he did two days ago vis a vis Elizabth Holtzman's realism. Messrs. Bush and Gonzales are locked in a death embrace. If Bush were to nominate a person of high competence and integrity as Attorney General, he would leave his administration vulnerable to attacks from within, investigations he could not dismiss as mere 'partisan politics' like the congressional oversight investigations and hearings. Plus, once Gonzales was a goner, protected by neither his office nor the personal fealty of POTUS, he would quickly become fair game for even more attacks from administration insiders and other Republicans than he is enduring now. It wouldn't take long for him to start retaliating and trying to mount some kind of defense of himself and the only likely defensive targets for him would be the political people in the White House and indirectly, the Decider himself, at whose pleasure, as we all know, the US attorneys serve. Perhaps Gonzales would simply fall on his sword and go through the rest of his life with his honesty and integrity thoroughly discredited, but it doesn't seem likely. Witness George Tenet. If he does bite the dust, my bet on the likely replacement nominee is not Comey or Fitzgerald, but that loyal Bushie Michael Chertof. He's screwed up the Department of Homeland Security and the relief effort for Hurricane Katrina; why not give him a shot to continue the good work at the Department of Justice where he used to work. Maybe he could bring back Heckofajob Brownie as his deputy AG.
Posted by: P. Bosley Slogthrop | May 4, 2007 09:58 AM

Email to Maureen Dowd at NYTimers May 2, 2007 re her column “Slam’s Silence” I have long thought it a defect in the American character that we rarely, indeed almost never, hear of a resignation from government because of a serious disagreement over important policy decisions. I'm not sure if it is still the case, but not long ago it wasn't all that uncommon to read of a British minister, or one on the Continent, resigning because of a disagreement with leadership of his government. In America, such an act is viewed as "quitting," or "showboating," or "not being a team player," or the worst, "being disloyal." This of course represents a terribly perverted and rather fascistic notion of "loyalty," something akin to the child's game of "follow the leader." Assuming there are many men and women of conscience serving in government, think of how many should have resigned as a matter of principle as Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld led the country ever deeper into the abyss and what effect such resignations might have had in alerting the public to what was really going on behind all the lies.

As I watched and listened to the Gonzales hearing on C-Span 3, I got to thinking of all the congressional hearings I have watched over the years, starting with the Army-McCarthy hearings in the 50s. I've seen a lot of hearings over the last 50 plus years but never in my life have I seen anything as preposterous and pathetic as yesterday's clown show before the Judiciary Committee.

This is the guy that all the federal pros
ecutors report to? This is the guy that the FBI reports to? This is the guy in charge of protecting the civil rights of Americans?
What does it say of George W. Bush that he put such a man in charge of the Department of Justice? What does it say about George W. Bush that that told the nation that he was "very pleased" with Gonzales' wholly incredible testimony?

Surely, Gonzalez' testimony, more than anything else, has strengthened the suspicion that the firings had everything to do improper partisan abuse of federal prosecutorial power and nothing to do with legitimate management concerns. This was a classic cover up at a very high level. It wasn't Sampson, Battle, and the others at DOJ who determined who made "the list" and who didn't, it was Karl Rove and his minions, including Harriet Miers. The purpose of the replacements was not to remediate problems of the past but to gear up for the next election in key swing states. Why would Rove want one of his own political deputies in the US attorney's office in Little Rock in the period leading up to the next national election? Because he's "very well qualified" as Gonzales testified, or to have the power of a federal grand jury to harass Hillary Clinton?

Gonzales' torment by the senators was so embarrassing that there were times when I almost felt sorry for him. When those feelings started to surface, I reminded myself that this is the guy who routinely blew off clemency appeals when he was the Decider's pardon counsel in Texas and who provided the torture opinion that let Bush and Rumsfeld bring shame upon the nation "under advice of counsel." Berto/Gonzo/Fredo has so much blood on his hands, I'll save my sympathy for his many, many victims. Any honor that attended his name is long gone. Good riddance. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Posted by: P. Bosley Slogthrop | April 20, 2007 07:00 AM

Gonzalez' testimony was so unenlightening that it leaves me with no reasonable doubt that the impetus for these firings originated and was maintained not in the Department of Justice, but in the White House with the Bush-Cheney-Rove axis of evil. The issue was never the administration of justice or management skills, but the preservation of executive power and regaining of legislative power, i.e., the 2008 elections and using the powers of federal prosecutors to further Republican power interests. Recall the DOJ memo about preparing for the political firestorm that would predictably result from the firings. These folks would not be willing to trigger the expected negative fallout from the firings if the only gain were increased managerial efficiencies at local US attorneys’ offices or fine tuning prosecutorial discretion on how to allocate prosecutorial resources. Power is the coin of the realm in politics: gaining it, keeping it or regaining it. Power is what the White House mob was after and Gonzales' role was essentially that of the mob lawyer.

Oh to have been a fly on the wall overhearing chats and reading memos and emails bewtween Counseler Miers and Domestic Counsel Rove re which venues needed to be targeted for US attorney changes. Ditto re communications between the Decider and Rove. Ditto re communications between the Veep and Rove. How is it possible for anyone to believe that Fredo Gonzales was the driving force behind these firings. Is there anywhere any suggestion that Fredo has ever leaned back when the Decider or the Veep or Rumsfeld or Rove wanted to do something illegal or outrageous. Fredo's value is that he is the Great Enabler for the Great Decider, dismissing legal and moral concerns about torture, eavesdropping, etc. He is worse than a mob lawyer. Mob lawyers had to be concerned about those pesky US attorneys, district attorneys, FBI and DEA agents, unfriendly judges, etc. Fredo and the Decider had no such problems since they were on top of the power structure, not outside it. He is a disgrace who has cast a shadow of suspicion over all US attorneys and their DOJ string-pullers. Like his boss, he has done much harm to the nation.
Posted by: Slogthrop | April 1, 2007 10:36 AM

There is something deeply ironic about George W. Bush of all people chiding the Iraqi government for a lack of maturity. This comes from a guy with a penchant for childish nicknames (”Turd Blossom” Rove, “Kennie Boy” Lay, and the infamous “You’re doin’ a heckofa job, Brownie” re FEMA’s Michael Brown), who gives unwelcome surprise shoulder rubs to the woman who is Chancellor of Germany (”Gotcha!), and who, four years ago, must have thought of the men and women who would invade and occupy Iraq as toy soldiers rather than flesh and blood sons and daughters, moms and dads, brothers and sisters and friends and neighbors who, with the Iraqi people, who would suffer the direst consequences of the immature decisions of the Decider. Yes, the Iraqi government suffers from a lack of a lot of qualities, but I wouldn’t put ‘maturity’ high on the list. Our own leader may have cornered that market.
— Posted by P. Bosley Slogthrop

There came a time during the American conflict in Vietnam when most Americans realized that, notwithstanding favorable "kill ratios" and burgeoning "body counts" and generals' visions of "light at the end of the tunnel," Vietnamese opponents of the American invaders and occupiers would never stop coming. We Americans couldn't kill them fast enough or in great enough numbers to end the war, ever. The war was not winnable. Most Americans now realize, with Bush and his minions thoroughly discredited on all Iraq issues, that the fighting between and among Iraqi tribal and religious groups will not stop no matter how many soldiers and Marines Bush orders into the cauldron. It is almost impossible to believe that a 15% increase in troop levels will alter the course of Iraq's disintegration. Bush's plan looks very much like putting off the inevitable.
Percy Slogthrop, Saukville, Wisconsin, USA

Bush will find little support in the U.S for his "new way forward' in Iraq no matter what it is. Except for the ever decreasing numbers of 'dead-enders' who would follow Bush off a cliff, Americans have finally seen the light about our arrogant, petulant Decider: he doesn't have a clue how to unscramble the egg he laid in Iraq. The one thing we are all sure of is that his proposal will cost billions more of dollars and ever more casualties. I haven't seen so much public contempt for a sitting president since the dire days preceding the impeachment and resignation of Nixon.

If there is an 'art' to war, as Sun Tzu averred millennia ago, then the Bush-Blair catastrophic artwork in Iraq calls to mind John Ruskin's comments on the sculpture of the Earl of Dudley's dog Bashaw in the V&A Museum: "The most perfectly and roundly ill-done thing which as yet in my whole life I ever saw produced in art. It showed that the persons who produced it had seen everything, and practiced everything; and misunderstood everything they saw, and misapplied everything they did." It was Bush's highly experienced 'dream team' of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and even Powell who gave us this war, men who knew everything and understood nothing. Blair let Bush get away with calling the American invaders and occupiers a "coalition force." Alas, the people of the US and the UK will pay for this tragic mistake by the Decider and his buddy well beyond my lifetime. Would that Bush and Blair had only sculpted a dog rather than loosed the dogs of civil war and chaos.
Percy Slogthrop, Saukville, Wisconsin, USA