On the wisdom of impeaching Alberto Gonzales as a means to uncover much greater crimes committed by George W. Bush and his administration, Anonymous Liberal saidbest:
The focus on Gonzales’ perjury has already paid dividends by forcing the Bush Administration to leak additional important facts about the NSA program to various news outlets in an effort to defend Gonzales. This is how scandals unravel. You find a thread and you pull it. That’s what happened in Watergate.
Nothing happens unless you create leverage and use it to pry the truth out. Gonzales’ lies may pale in significance to the underlying conduct at issue here, but they are also something concrete, something that can be seized upon to put pressure on the White House. We’re never going to get to the underlying truth unless we have some means of forcing the issue.
Bush knows that he cannot afford to lose Gonzales, but he is quickly running out of room to maneuver. His administration is clearly in a panic, frantically trying to make this issue go away, yet each successive twist to the story only ratchets up the pressure. Democrats in the House are wise to move on impeachment now. They must force Bush to make another move he can ill afford…
To be fair, this is only the first of many battles to come, but it is an important one. We have the truth on our side, as well as the authority to demand it, but more importantly we have a clear and compelling emotional and moral story-line. Gonzales’ conduct is beyond indefensible, even for the most jaded Republicans in Congress, so we must continue to force Bush and Dick Cheney to publicly back him. They cannot win that game without destroying what little credibility they have left.
I knew it, and wished I would have said it then. Can someone, anyone, please tell me why we now must find the “facts” buried on the opinion pages, while innuendo and spin masquerade parade unchallenged by the truth?
Digby, as usual, cuts through the clutter and puts the entire Bush presidency into focus (my emphasis in bold):
We can impeach and maybe we will. And maybe we’ll remove Bush and Cheney and Gonzales and send a powerful message about the usurpation of the constitution. But no matter what, this is ultimately something the people have to rectify at the ballot box. All constitutional power derives from us. We are the ones who have to make a stand, not just 67 men and women in the Senate. We must vote them out. And we must keep them out until this radical conservative movement is so discredited that they can never again take the radical step of ruling this nation with one president and 34 obedient senators as if they were ordained by God instead of the people of this nation.
I would hope that everyone can see that presidential impeachment isn’t an end in itself. It’s a very serious intervention by the congress into the heart of our democratic system — it seeks to remove a duly elected president and it simply must be ratified by the people or we will have weakened the constitution even more by doing it. It is elections that are the foundation of democracy and what gives real legitimacy to the government. Surely if we believe it is the Democratic congress’ duty to impeach, we must also believe it is our duty to ensure that these people are repudiated by the citizens in no uncertain terms.
No matter what happens in the congress over the next year, I hope that everyone recognizes that the single most important thing that has to happen is that we kick the Republican party so far out of power they have to have a passport to get back in.
I am far from a student of history, but even I now realize that we must never rest when it comes to projecting our voices, protecting our rights, and protesting endlessly when either one is trampled.
This is not a Democratic issue, this is an American issue. They — meaning Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, and the entire Republican party — have so fundamentally perverted what it means to be an American. We cannot and must not let it stand. The truth must be told, the air must be cleared; then we must continue to tell the truth and keep the air clear, so that we are never again confronted with such a brazen attack on our way of life.
These men are not patriots, they are criminals. But they have not only wrapped themselves in the flag, they have justified their actions with God and the Bible. It will not be easy to break their spell on a good portion of America, but it must be done.
On the subject of the Democratic CNN/YouTube debate and the fact that Republicans are making a hasty retreat from doing one of their own, Josh Marshall saidbest:
I’m not sure whether the resistance is rooted is the profound feebleness of the current GOP field or the fact that the current Bush Republican party is so beholden to a worldview based on denial and suppression of evidence that exposure to unpredictable questions presents too great a danger. But if they can’t face Youtube how can they defeat the terrorists?
Oh the irony, Papa Bear Bill O’Reilly said the very same thing on his program tonight.
Brilliant. Well played, Josh.
On the audacity of Alberto Gonzales, and his willful and shameless shilling for George W. Bush, the man to whom he owes his place in life, Glenn Greenwald saidbest:
That is what Alberto Gonzales does. He lies to protect the President. And the President will never fire him. Gonzales isn’t keeping his job despite his willingness to lie to Congress, but because of it. Congress has no choice but to act meaningfully — impeachment of Gonzales and a Special Prosecutor — and if they do not, then, I suppose, one could say that Congress deserves to be lied to.
Honestly, how can you watch this clip and not be dumbfounded blown away by the gall of this man?
It no longer matters whether Alberto Gonzales is a woeful idiot or a pigheaded liar. This man has no business in our government, let alone at the head of Justice Department. If he won’t resign and Bush won’t fire him, then he must be impeached. Now.
So says Ask a Ninja in this hysterical, and incredibly important, riff on net neutrality. Don’t miss it:
Though admittedly late to the game on this one, I am now convinced that net neutrality is without a doubt the single most pressing issue of the moment. And yes, I believe it is even more fundamental than stopping the War in Iraq. I realize that sounds ridiculous, but please allow me to explain…
Duncan Black, as he so often does, perfectly frames the problem (my emphasis in bold):
I’d say that roughly speaking there are 4 kinds of people in this country when it comes to politics and current events (of course these are broad brush categories). There are the people who really don’t pay any attention at all, and whose only real knowledge comes from passive absorption of random things that they happen to hear. There are the people who get all of their information from Limbaugh and the rest of the conservative media. There are the people who imagine that they’re paying attention, and think that by listening to NPR and reading gullible idiots like Joe Klein they’re “very informed.” And then there are the readers of this blog who know what’s really going on (joke).
It’s the third category of people I worry most about how to reach. They’re the ones who absorb and regurgitate Maureen Dowd’s latest bon mot, or the latest bit of Washington “conventional wisdom,” and think they’re really on top of things. They aren’t necessarily stupid people, they just haven’t come to terms with the fact that the mainstream media is something to be treated with great skepticism.
Need proof? Compare the New York Times’ “Gonzales Denies Improper Pressure on Ashcroft” headline with Josh Marshall’s “Gonzales to Schumer: Blow Me” version. Watch the video at the end of Josh’s post, then read the NYT article. Not convinced? See this New York Times’ jewel “President Links Qaeda of Iraq to Qaeda of 9/11” versus Dan Froomkin’s Bush Can’t Make the Sale. In both cases the NYT version is complete and utter bullshit, but you would never think so if you didn’t know where else to look.
Like it or not, America is still governed by the court of public opinion, and until very recently the ability to shape this narrative rested solely in the hands of the rich and powerful. We have only begun to challenge the status quo and the media machine that enforces it, but the difference is clear: they seek power, we seek the truth. We can only gain power by exposing more people to the truth, which is why Duncan’s third category is so critical to our cause.
The mass media triumvirate of television, newspapers, and magazines is dying, and what will replace it is a hybrid of all three and more, something that can only exist on the internet. In that regard, we are clearly a threat: we understand this brave new world better than they can, both today or tomorrow. By necessity, their game plan is to ignore, omit, and silence any viewpoint that does not match its own, but that plan works only when there is no other compelling venue in the market.
Net neutrality ensures that all of us have a voice in our nation’s destiny, and creates a marketplace where the best idea, and best expression of it, wins. It creates a productive discussion, a natural balance, a healthy tension. It yields a place where honesty and integrity matter, where lies have consequences, where injustices can be made right.
We can even end a corrupt and craven presidency, and along with it the war in Iraq, but before we project our voice we must first protect it. Come to think of it, they’re one in the same.
More soon.
