Constitutional Crisis Looms

[thomryng]

Well, that's just swell. The President of the United States has just told the United States Senate to get stuffed.

In short, here's the scoop: Attorney General Alberto "The Waterboarding Kid" Gonzales fired a number of US Attorneys for "poor performance", apparently with White House approval.

It turns out that that these particular US Attorneys all had very good ratings and almost all had good to great performance evaluations.

It also turns out that every one of them either refused to back down from ethical investigations against Republicans or refused to pursue unwarranted investigations against Democrats.

It's pretty clear that Gonzales lied to Congress when they first tried to investigate this stupidity.

The White House and the Attorney General's office are only handing over some of the papers requested by the Senate, and now the President has said that no officials of the Executive branch will respond to Congressional subpoenas.

And who pursues the scofflaws who refuse to appear before Congress? Why, that would be...




wait for it...




the Attorney General's office.

If this all plays out the way the principals are indicating they're going to play it, then Congress will only have one option remaining.

Impeachment.

Stay tuned.

Comments

[garpu.livejournal.com]

The democrats would have to really blow it in 2008 to not get elected...

[garpu.livejournal.com]

And I'm still pissed at the push to get Catholics to vote REpublican the past 2 elections, insinuating that those who didn't weren't "good" Catholics. grrr.

[thomryng.livejournal.com]

Well, I grew up in Chicago, where Catholics were Democrats and Republics were... well, irrelevant.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Same here. What part? I was in a far northern suburb, Carpentersville. (Went to Dundee Crown.)

[thomryng.livejournal.com]

Southwest side of the city. Near 55th and California. Went to St. Rita HS - 25 years ago.

Crazy.

[gislebertus.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how this one ends in impeachment, as there's no criminality involved. If the Congress hits the two soon-to-be subpoenaed principals (Rove and Meirs) with contempt of Congress for refusing to show up, it's up to the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia to pursue those charges. As for Gonzales, he'll probably out of a job within the week anyways.

[thomryng.livejournal.com]

I'm not convinced that Gonzales is going of his own free will.

And even if he does, impeachment is pretty much the only way they're going to get these folks to testify.

Mind you, they don't have to impeach the president, just the AG.

[thomryng.livejournal.com]

As have the people of Vermont.

Let us see.

[plutherus.livejournal.com]

Congress will only have one option remaining.

Impeachment.


There is one other option: Wussing out, and not doing a damn thing, allowing themselves to be just as useless and ineffectual as they have been for the last six years.

[thomryng.livejournal.com]

The Democratic Congress is just starting to flex its muscle. We've already had more oversight in the last two weeks than we've had in the previous six years.

I'm cautiously optimistic.

[phoenxbutterfly.livejournal.com]

I'm choosing to remain cynical, I think there is a good chance the Dems will turn into a bunch of pansies. I'm praying they won't, but there is still a chance of them wussing out on taking serious steps against King Shrub.