Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Edwards Wins the Gonzales Primary


From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....


Former Senator John Edwards wins. He's the first of the leading Democratic presidential candidates to call for the head of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on a stick--that is, for the A.G. to resign over the still-expanding U.S. attorney scandal. After news stories appeared on Tuesday reporting White House involvement in the recent firings of federal prosecutors (including those who were unresponsive to Republican pressure to investigate Democrats), Edwards released this statement:

Today's news is only the latest and most disturbing sign of the politicization of justice under President Bush. From the abuse of investigative authority under the Patriot Act to the unconstitutional imprisonment of the Guantanamo Bay detainees and illegal torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Bagram Air Force Base, this president has consistently shown contempt for the rule of law.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales betrayed his public trust by playing politics when his job is to enforce and uphold the law. By violating that trust, he's done a great disservice to his office. If White House officials ordered this purge, he should have refused them. If they insisted, he should have resigned in protest. Attorney General Gonzales should certainly resign now.


Edwards left current Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the dust. Earlier in the day, HRC's office put out a statement in which she called for more answers--from President Bush:

With the White House now acknowledging a direct role in the Justice Department's U.S. Attorney firings, the president must affirmatively step forward to explain what he is doing to address the politicization of our prosecutorial system and what role he and his aides played in this controversy.

The president is the chief executive of the country and this matter goes to the heart of his ability to manage our federal law enforcement and U.S. Attorney system. It is imperative that the president act swiftly to explain what role the White House played in this situation, hold those who acted inappropriately accountable, and take responsibility


Yes, she asked Bush to take responsibility. Has she not been paying attention?

Obama took a similar stance, highlighting his previous opposition to Gonzales:

I opposed Mr. Gonzalez's nomination, in part, because he had shown in his role as White House Counsel a penchant for subverting justice to serve the President's political goals, and I feared that in an Attorney General. Sadly, the latest revelations underscore my concern. Americans deserve to know who in the White House is pulling the strings at the Department of Justice, and why. Anyone involved should appear under oath and answer these questions.


Round to Edwards.

That is perhaps a flippant way of looking at today's flurry of press releases from the Democratic candidates. But if this scandal does widen, expect Edwards to remind Democratic primary voters (over and over) that when evidence emerged suggesting the Bush administration perverted the federal prosecution system, he was the first to demand that Gonzales, who in 2005 approved the idea of firing a group of prosecutors, leave the administration. If the scandal peters out, no Democratic voter will hold it against Edwards that he demanded Gonzales' resignation. Yet he may well end up with the bragging rights. After all, you never know where a scandal is heading or how big it will become.

Posted by David Corn at March 13, 2007 03:57 PM

7 comments:

David B. Benson said...

Unreality in the White House

You might have seen this before, but it is worth reading this Ron Suskind piece again, especially the comments of a senior advisor about 60% of the way through, shortly after a mention of a Karen Hughes.

We'ra a empire now, so reality doesn't matter...

O'Reilly said...

Subject: Do Not Pardon Libby

To: President George Bush

CC: Sen. Edward Kennedy, Sen. John Kerry, Rep. Stephen Lynch


March 13, 2007

7 out of 10 Americans think Libby - who was convicted of lying, perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case investigation - should NOT be pardoned.

This is a great news: The American people still believe in the rule of law. It's time for the White House to demonstrate the same.

Uphold justice by not pardoning Libby. Testify truthfully with full disclosure who was involved in leaking the CIA agent's name, why it was done and what measures have been taken to keep our nation's intelligence assets from being used in the politics of justifying foriegn wars based on fraudulent intelligence.

Anonymous said...

Alberto Gonzales accepting responsibility:

"I acknowledge that mistakes were made here," Gonzales told reporters at a news briefing after he canceled an out-of-town trip. "I accept that responsibility," he said and he promised changes "so that the mistakes that occurred in this instance do not occur again in the future." What he really meant: "We must do a better job of covering our tracks. We won't make that mistake again!

Anonymous said...

Al Gore Seeks Earlier Start to Kyoto Pact Successor

Britain Proposes Firm Carbon Emission Targets

It's Expensive to Ignore Global Warming

So which presidential candidate is going to bring GLOBAL WARMING into the discussion as one of the most important issues of the day?

Anonymous said...

I JUST GOT THIS EMAIL -- looks as though this may be the answer to my question above:

Dear micki,

Global warming isn't a problem our children will face—it's a reality today and it’s accelerating much faster than ever predicted.

We cannot wait until the next president is elected to begin to take action on global warming. We all must take responsibility and do our part to stop global warming today—even if the current government refuses to act.

That's why today I’m announcing my commitment to make my campaign "carbon neutral"—meaning we will offset the impact of all our energy use to ensure that our campaign does not contribute to global warming.

To achieve carbon neutrality, we’re taking two big steps. First, we’re implementing a number of simple but effective techniques to conserve energy in our national and field offices. And I’ve asked my staff to take concrete steps to reduce their own energy consumption. Conserving energy now is the single biggest thing we all can do as individuals to combat global warming.

But presidential campaigns by their nature use an enormous amount of energy for travel and operations. Which is why today I have also directed the campaign to purchase carbon offsets that support alternative energy production to neutralize the global warming impact from our travel and office energy use.

Carbon offsets are an expensive proposition for a national campaign—but I believe it is an investment for our planet that we simply must make.

Global warming is bigger than any political party, any election—and certainly any one campaign—and good ideas for achieving carbon neutrality should be shared freely.

I'd like to hear your ideas on how we—all of us on this campaign, and throughout America—can reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide.

Tell me your ideas by visiting our campaign blog:

http://johnedwards.com/r/7436/165751/

We weren't the first campaign to declare our efforts to become carbon neutral. Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack had announced carbon neutrality for his campaign shortly before he withdrew a few weeks ago.

Currently, we're the only campaign in either party to make the carbon neutral pledge—but we hope we won’t be for long. Global warming doesn't stop at party lines and neither should our commitment to preventing it.

I hope that you will do your part as well to stop global warming by taking action to conserve energy in your home, office and personal life.

Thank you for doing your part,

John Edwards

David B. Benson said...

Micki --- Another resaon to encourage

Edwards for President!

capt said...

New Thread!