Holy …
Watch this video: You-Tube – GONZALES: Pressured DOJ to OK Domestic Spying
So… Gonzales and Andrew Card after being told “no, domestic spying is not legal”, they went to Ashcroft in the hospital, to get him to sign off on its legality directly.
The testimony is gripping.
Remembered from my experience being married to a public defender in Oklahoma – I routinely found myself despising the tactics and leadership in the Oklahoma County DA’s office (the reign of Bob Macy the hatted bolo tie unscrupulous bastard). But there were a number of younger DAs who still believed in the law itself – until working there beat it out of them.
It’s comforting to find there are still people in the system I don’t agree with at ALL who do something I can admire because they believe in the rules.
Read the Times article on this, and I’m even more convinced that Gonzales is a dangerous toady who has to go (like everyone else that’s left in the Bush Administration, obviously).
Remembered from my experience being married to a public defender in Oklahoma – I routinely found myself despising the tactics and leadership in the Oklahoma County DA’s office (the reign of Bob Macy the hatted bolo tie unscrupulous bastard). But there were a number of younger DAs who still believed in the law itself – until working there beat it out of them.
It’s comforting to find there are still people in the system I don’t agree with at ALL who do something I can admire because they believe in the rules.
Read the Times article on this, and I’m even more convinced that Gonzales is a dangerous toady who has to go (like everyone else that’s left in the Bush Administration, obviously).
Re: John Ashcroft…
Indeed. I vastly prefer even vile toadies to play by the rules. As long as no one is attempting to play dictator, the government can recover and the overall system is not harmed, no matter how much many of us may disagree with all manner of policies. However, if people start using tactics like those typical of Gonzales and Bush, both the government and the integrity of the state as a whole are in very deep trouble.
I’m (optimistically) expecting scholarly articles to be written in 20 years about how the 5 years after 9/11 represented a brief but troubling era in US politics where the government attempted to embrace totalitarianism and (barely) failed.
Or at least that he’s a thug who respects chain-of command, and wasn’t willing to sign off on a declaration while he’d formally ceded the AG’s powers to someone else.
Although given that his chief of staff persuaded Cormey to stay on until Ashcroft was well enough to resign, himself, your interpretation is both better, and more in tune with the facts.
Welcome to Bizaro World — where John Ashcroft seems like a valiant defender of personal liberty.
My thought exactly. I suppose what we see in that impressively shocking exchange is the difference between people who I vastly disagree with, but who at least also have an interest in law and justice and brutal thugs who care only for about achieving their own goals, regardless of the cost or means. I loathe Ashcroft, but it’s clear from this that at least he’s not one of the thugs.
John Ashcroft…
John Ashcroft is a toady and a suck-up, but as a former Senator (even a former senator who lost his seat to a dead guy), he’s capable of seeing even in a hospital bed that the Constitution and the law are being broken by a bunch of ratbags from Texas and Wyoming.
There’s some comfort in that, really.
Welcome to Bizaro World — where John Ashcroft seems like a valiant defender of personal liberty.
Tom
p.s. I like how A.G. Deputy Comey was in the room and when Gonzo asked Ashcroft to sign off he said “a.) it’s illegal and b.) Comey over there is acting A.G. while I’m dyin’ over here.”
Welcome to Bizaro World — where John Ashcroft seems like a valiant defender of personal liberty.
Tom
p.s. I like how A.G. Deputy Comey was in the room and when Gonzo asked Ashcroft to sign off he said “a.) it’s illegal and b.) Comey over there is acting A.G. while I’m dyin’ over here.”
John Ashcroft…
John Ashcroft is a toady and a suck-up, but as a former Senator (even a former senator who lost his seat to a dead guy), he’s capable of seeing even in a hospital bed that the Constitution and the law are being broken by a bunch of ratbags from Texas and Wyoming.
There’s some comfort in that, really.
Re: John Ashcroft…
Indeed. I vastly prefer even vile toadies to play by the rules. As long as no one is attempting to play dictator, the government can recover and the overall system is not harmed, no matter how much many of us may disagree with all manner of policies. However, if people start using tactics like those typical of Gonzales and Bush, both the government and the integrity of the state as a whole are in very deep trouble.
I’m (optimistically) expecting scholarly articles to be written in 20 years about how the 5 years after 9/11 represented a brief but troubling era in US politics where the government attempted to embrace totalitarianism and (barely) failed.
Welcome to Bizaro World — where John Ashcroft seems like a valiant defender of personal liberty.
My thought exactly. I suppose what we see in that impressively shocking exchange is the difference between people who I vastly disagree with, but who at least also have an interest in law and justice and brutal thugs who care only for about achieving their own goals, regardless of the cost or means. I loathe Ashcroft, but it’s clear from this that at least he’s not one of the thugs.
Or at least that he’s a thug who respects chain-of command, and wasn’t willing to sign off on a declaration while he’d formally ceded the AG’s powers to someone else.
Although given that his chief of staff persuaded Cormey to stay on until Ashcroft was well enough to resign, himself, your interpretation is both better, and more in tune with the facts.