I’m finding myself more and more obsessed with the Giuliani campaign because it really appears to me that the Republicans may just nominate someone dumber than Bush and crazier than Cheney. And without the morals of either of them. How is that even possible?

I hate to say it but I think she might be right.

From the beginning of his rise with George W. Bush until the day of his abrupt resignation, Alberto Gonzales was anointed, directed and protected by Karl Rove. At the Department of Justice, Gonzales served as Rove’s figurehead. In the real line of authority, the attorney general, a constitutional officer, reported to the White House political aide. Bush did not nickname Gonzales “Fredo,” after the weak brother in “The Godfather,” without reason.

As White House counsel and attorney general, Gonzales operated as the rubber stamp of the two great goals of the Bush presidency — the concentration of unaccountable power in the executive and the subordination of executive departments and agencies to partisan political imperatives. Vice President Cheney directed the project for the imperial presidency, while Rove took charge of the top-down politicization of the federal government. Gonzales dutifully signed memos abrogating the Geneva Conventions against torture, calling them “quaint,” and approved the dismissal of U.S. attorneys for insufficient partisan zeal.

Fittingly, his routine indifference to matters right and wrong, to say nothing of legal and illegal, was not his downfall. Rather, Gonzales is now leaving office due to his inability to keep up the barest semblance of competency in his job and coherence in the face of his critics. Let’s face it, he failed to register even a modicum of respect from his own Republican party, which is a pretty low bar indeed!

In the end, it all comes down to keeping up appearances. That, of course, was once thought to be Rove’s one true gift, but now like nearly everything else he has touched — in this case propping up a man who had no business being Attorney General — his ultimate undoing. And that is precisely why the real story here has nothing to do with Gonzales…

So make no mistake, Gonzales is not leaving because of Rove, rather it is Rove who had to leave because of Gonzales. Don’t be fooled by the inversion, and the implied causality here. This is due to a gross miscalculation on Rove’s part — that Gonzales could lie to Congress with impunity — necessitating yet another elaborate cover story to escape his crimes. I have to wonder if Bush has even pieced this one together yet.

As thrilled as I am to see them both go, and believe me I am ecstatic, I sincerely hope we haven’t seen the last of them just yet. Congress must continue to press these two and hold them accountability for all of their lies told and laws broken. That is truly the only way we can prevent this absurdity from ever happening again.

I hear posters sometimes say “we’re better than that” or “we’re better than them.” I don’t agree. I think our faults, our weaknesses, as human beings, are no different than the 29%’ers. We can be just as petty and small.

But our ideas and values, those are very different indeed. We believe in giving folks a hand up, not leaving them to fend for themselves. We believe government can work for everyone, and that the people of this country, given a fair voting system, will do the right thing in electing representatives that reflect that notion. We believe that working together we can solve the problems of our country, that no one should be left behind and no one is not worth helping.

…

And that is what the O’Reilly’s and Coulters and Roves and Cheneys are so afraid of, why they attack us personally and try to shift the debate to that level — because they know they will lose if that debate is about ideas rather than who’s more holy and pure and without sin.

I have followed Daily Kos for as long as I can remember, well over four years (largely due to Howard Dean in fact), and I still frequent this site more than ten times a day, if not more. I read just about everything that gets front-paged and/or pushed to the top of the recommended list, but in spite of that I have never seen that picture of Bush and Lieberman. Yes, it’s tacky and tasteless (and funny too), but it’s so far removed from the typically thoughtful tone of the vast majority of posts.

Chris Dodd effectively and courageously echoed some of the same thoughts as well:

He did not apologize for engaging the Daily Kos community and neither should we for believing in it. It’s well past time for us to recognize our growing clout in the political process, and to use our power to shift the debate. We are far from perfect, but thankfully perfection is not our goal. We simply seek the opportunity to pursue policies that benefit more than the wealthy few, that support and nourish those in need, and that give life to innovation and new opportunities for all.

Is that hateful? Is that un-American? I think not, and I believe the American people will agree if we can find a way to cut through this crap. It’s demagoguery pure and simple.

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.

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.