I wonder if Leahy had something to threaten him with in that meeting they had.

when they start talking about his job, the house of cards comes down.

wipe that smirk off your face, gonzo.

"Look. I'm not comfortable with where we're at today on this issue"

Looks like progress is being made.

yes, what jeffgee said. They consider this a tactical screwup, not a fundamentally dishonest action

Translation: Next time they'll be sneakier and have all their stories set up in advance.

nofltwlt,

make that two idiots at last count ... something tells me we may be saddled with another idiot seein' as that's all Bush appears to be able to draw from the well of zombified neo-convicts and crony crackers

This lizard hasn't given a straight answer yet. To anyone. Yes or no isn't in his vocabulary. Circumlocution is his middle name. He lies. About NSA, USAs prisoners and wrong doing at the FBI. Probably the shortest, biggest jagoff in the administration not known for men of tall stature. It seems the Chump doesn't want to look up to anybody. I bet Sibel Edmonds could open some eyes in Congress. They should ask Gonzales to un-classify the information that once was unclassified.

Well, hopefully one day I will leave and go back to Texas. That's my sincere hope.

Hopefully, with a (not so) brief stopover at a federal prison.

"One thing that we could have done and should have done, obviously, is in speaking with these U.S. Attorneys to make sure they understood the reasons why the decision was made..."

You think? (sigh) Yes, asshat, telling people you just fired why they've been fired might have been a good idea.

The man's an idiot and a liar, and I'm not sure anyone on the Hill (R or D) likes him at all (don't discount this as a factor). His days are numbered.

This little hothead seems to have cooled a bit. Looks like Lucy paddled his ass. The chihuahua takes a siesta.

So what if the venom is gone if the vetted AG’s are still on the job?

Please, for the love of God, Democrats, just this once don’t fall for the same maneuver, again.

The more Watergate was denied, the more it was apparent.

As as hard as they were after Nixon, I continued to give him the benefit of the doubt until about four days or so before he could lie and cover no more.

With this Bush administration it was lie, lie, lie from the get go.

You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

"I want to reassure the American people that we in no way have made decisions to politicize these offices."

Could you be a bigger liar? It was entirely about politicizing those offices. Do you think we haven't figured it out, yet? Do you think that lie is going to make a difference in a few days when you're forced to say under oath to one or both of the Judiciary Committees that you were indeed trying to politicize those offices? Name one thing that this administration has ever done that wasn't politically motivated.

"...it's something that we're looking at internally about how we got to where we are today..."

Let's see if I can help out here. You got to where you are today by being incredibly dishonest and by trying rig the system so that you could put political hacks into the U.S. attorneys' offices to keep those offices from investigating members and friends of the administration. What we'd like to know is: Was it all your idea, did you hatch this plot with someone else in the White House, or did someone put you up to it?

He don't need no stinkin' prosecutors.

And did I remember to say "he is a goddamn snake'?

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is a loyal stooge of the Bush administration.

He's an accomplice to the corruption of the Federal Government and chief operative in the Bush administration assault on the United States Constitution and our precious freedoms.
Gonzales is directly responsible for the Bush administration's contempt of international law, the Geneva Convention, the US Constitution, the rule of law and the truth itself.
Gonzales has repeatedly perjured himself before Congress and now says he's too busy to respond to a subpoena to answer for his criminal activity.

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers should be strongly encouraged to file articles for impeachment of AG Gonzales.

In Dailykos, we call him Abu Gonzales, and it's got to be the most apt, fitting, applicable, perfect fucking moniker any government official's ever worn in American history. He's absolutely eaten away with the rot of malfeasance and lies (petty and planet-sized), and to think that he is THE standard-bearer for justice in America...it makes my stomach turn, you know? It's just really too much to bear.

Serially, he cannot tell the truth. Ritualistically, he's torn at the innards of the Constitution. Constantly, he's on the defensive for this or that precedent-setting, uglified moment in our collective history. Torture stops at his door. Ditto suspended habeas corpus. Ditto detainees' rights. Now, we have this piece of (clownish, it turns out, albeit in execution, not intent) grotesquery to contemplate - the fired attorneys. What's fascinating and terrifying to me is that THIS scandal is a new one, coming out of nowhere and roosting in plain sight. It underlines the terrible fear so many of us have had for so many years, which is, we know about Abu Graibh and warrantless wiretapping and the Military Commissions Act and signing statements and torture, but what are the things we DON'T know about?

This was one of those things.

I think irony will rule the day with this one a la an out-of-nowhere snowballing scandal revealing many, many other things. You think a stolen election lurks in here, for example? I sure as hell do.

The Bushies are the first administration I've ever experienced where right down the line I just don't respect a single one of them - in fact, feel outright, withering contempt for. Gonzales is assuredly in that category; in fact, I disrespect him more than Bush or Rice (to make a fine distinction). The point is, America really hasn't had a functioning government for a good 6 years, you know? 6 fucking years! You have to pay for that at some point; there have to be repercussions.

I'd sure like to see one repercussion be these peoples' fucking incarceration. And yeah, Alberto, we can work make it in Texas if you want.

Chastened my sweet horses patootie!!!

Gonzalez isn't the least bit chastened. He is still lying through his teeth claiming that there were legitimate non-political bases for the firing of the US Attorneys.

He is a criminal and should be kicked out of office and have his ticket to practice law pulled! They wanted to pull Clinton's license to practice law for lying about a private matter that should never have been questioned under oath. This attorney general, and the administration he serves, deserve the worst our legal and constitutional systems can serve up for them.

kmsor

Well, hopefully one day I will leave. But listen. We are working with the Congress to provide information about what happened here because, listen, I have no idea. I've already indicated that there were things that were done in connection with these decisions that could have been and should have been done better. Next time we'll make certain our opponents are quietly silenced. I want to reassure the American people that we in no way have made decisions to politicize these offices, but rather have made political decision as to how we manage them. There's a difference which I am not at liberty to explain to you because it's classified.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to get to the more important work of prosecuting several hundred undocumented Guatemalan women who our glorious Homeland Security boys rounded up, led away in chains, and then promptly separated from their infants and young children during that great guns-drawn raid up there in Massachusetts.

You have got to admit, this guy is so good for a laugh it makes my ears ring. Let me paraphrase his explanation..."Man, I am truly sorry we got caught. We should have done a better job at flim-flamming those USA's. Geeze you can't trust anyone with a brain nowadays to keep their mouths shut. I'm sure our next set of appointments will be more loyal stooges and easier marks." Any of you out there still seeking a straight answer about any of this? You have got to be kidding!

hmmm,
who needs prosecutors to do the political dirty work when you have the FBI?

Maybe someday Gonzales can leave Washington and go back to Mexico. With all the problems this guy has caused the United States, we don't need him around any more--not even in Texas. The harm that "the Geneva Convention is quaint" has caused our country is incalculable.