President Bush expressed confidence in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales on Wednesday, but agreed that "mistakes were made" in the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors, and said it "troubles me" that lawmakers feel his administration was not straightforward.
As he wrapped up a six-day, five-nation tour of Latin America, Bush found himself again forced to confront a political furor back home. He took time out from his Mexican schedule to call Gonzales Wednesday morning and instruct him to go to Capitol Hill to repair his credibility problems with Congress. But Bush denied that politics drove the decision to fire the U.S. attorneys.
"I’ve heard those allegations about political decision making — it’s just not true," Bush said during an appearance with Mexican President Felipe Calderón here before flying back to Washington in the afternoon. He added: "What Al did, and what the Justice Department did, was appropriate. U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president. They can be removed by the president. What was mishandled was the explanation of the cases to Congress."
We’re sitting out here reading nine months of emails between Harriet Myers and Kyle Samson in which they plot and scheme to get rid of Prosecutors who won’t get on board using the Justice Department to prosecute voters cases that might purge Democratic voters. What wasn’t political about that? How would that be presented to Congress to make it okay? And the part about "at the pleasure of the President." We know that. But what we’re saying is that he’s not Louis XIV. We’re not questioning that he’s got the authority to do what he’s doing. We’re saying that there’s a level of accountability for what he does that’s a step above the fact that he has the power. We’re complaining about the basic morality of firing Federal Prosecutors because they won’t follow what we consider to be a blatantly partisan political agenda.
And then he says: "I’ve heard those allegations about political decision making — it’s just not true." We’ve read the emails. We’ve read their performance ratings. What is true? It sure looks, sounds, and quacks like a duck to me. We do understand. And, I hasten to add that the President serves at the "pleasure of" the people and the Congress.
So now a head has rolled. Alberto’s Chief of Staff bit the dust yeasterday. Being a Chief of Staff in this Administration is like being a King’s food taster in days of gone by – a dangerous job. And one wonders if this is why Harriet Miers resigned. She resigned on January 4th, a month after these firings, for no discernable reason. One wonders if the s__t was already hitting the proverbial fan about these firings and hers was a pre-emptive resignation to dodge the soon-coming bullets. The firings hit the Press a week or so after her resignation best I can reconstruct…
I just watched the Newshour on PBS where Gwen Ifill interviewed two former staff of the AG office one in the present Bush’s first term named Noel Franciso and a law professor from U of Maryland from the Clinton era named Mr. Greenberger. Gwen just let Franciso lie and lie and didn’t give MrGreenberger a chance to answer his lies about how Clinton fired everybody never mentioning that Bush and all the other presidents do that.. This Francisco guy got all his Republican talking points out and you could just see the glee for having done such a good job. I had to write a letter to PBS and tell them what I just told you. My blood pressure must still be high. Especially when he said what the AG office did was no big deal firing those 8 US Attorneys and there was no need for Gonzales to get involved in dealing with it, What Mr. franciso said was basically it was small stuff.
Joyhollywood,
They just never give up with the Talking Point thing, do they? Keep writing. We were too quiet about this stuff, and look where it got us…