It has taken awhile before I think I finally 'get it' regarding what happened in the firing of those United States federal attorneys. The spin is always out there and figuring out what really has gone on always takes awhile-- if you even can.
United States Attorneys are political appointees. When a new president comes in, quite often they all will be asked to resign; so the president can put his party's people into power. This might seem bad but in reality there is a political agenda for which people are voting when they elect presidents.
Yes, they are there to prosecute criminals, but the choice of crimes they go after will be impacted by the beliefs of their party. Prostitution became a big issue to Ashcroft as soon as he got in (big sting to nail prostitutes while he should have been more concerned with potential terrorists) when it'd been nothing to Reno. Likewise Oregon's right to die with dignity mattered to a Bush administration and had not to the Clinton people. When you think issues don't matter, keep in mind where it comes to what the government goes after, they very much do.
The Attorney General's office, however, is supposed to represent the entire country. A good one, even though a political appointee, will do just that. When Robert Kennedy was appointed Attorney General under JFK's administration, it probably seemed he'd be a rubber stamp for his brother; but in reality he was strong-willed and argued for what he felt was right. So you could have a man like Alberto Gonzales, who would be owing much to George Bush; but still speak his mind, have his own opinions.
You could, but that man would not be Gonzales. He has been a toady for Bush who whatever his boss wanted was right and he'd write an opinion finding some justification for it. He knew why he was there. He agreed torture was fine, ignoring Geneva Conventions was fine, getting rid of Habeas Corpus was fine, prisons with no charges was fine. George Bush wants it, Gonzales delivers. He has never been our United States Attorney General. He has always been Bush's man in ways by which neither the government nor the people of the United States have been served.
If Bush had fired all US attorneys when he got in, it would not have been bad for the system-- given the system we have. What he did instead was let them know they could keep their job if they followed what he wanted. Now if that was involving laws about things like abortion, national security, prostitution, drugs, or a myriad of other criminal or questionable moral choices, we could say that the people voted Bush in and they are stuck with his viewpoint.
But that wasn't all the pressure brought to bear. It was in at least one case a demand-- bring charges of voter fraud against a democratic candidate right before the November elections. There was no concern whether there had actually been voter fraud. What was needed was the taint. The accusation is that when that attorney refused, he was put on the short list to losing his job. Another of the attorneys on that list had successfully prosecuted Duke Cunningham-- a Republican.
In the eight, there might be some who were incompetent, maybe even all. To find out is why it's good we have a Democratic leadership in Congress as there can now be investigations. If Republicans were in charge, this would have been buried. It is better for the country that the information comes out.
If these are all men and women who simply didn't do the partisan bidding of the White House, then the next question is-- what did the ones do that didn't get fired? It causes a total lack of faith in the system when you see it used in a way that is only intended to get Republicans off when they do wrong and bring charges oriented purely toward getting other Republicans elected. Can you smell corruption! Probably not if you are a right wing Republican.
As an aside, some say Barack Obama doesn't have enough experience to be president. He should have been in the Senate longer, should have been in Washington longer. Why? To corrupt him like the rest? I am beginning to think lack of experience in the DC political elite system is a virtue... and don't bother to say that described Bush. Besides being totally incompetent and only succeeding in anything through his family connections, Bush was always in the system-- just hadn't been elected in Washington. Those he appointed were part of a very long standing bunch. Maybe Obama is what they are scared of-- both parties.
20 comments:
I so agree with you on Obama's experience!
My friend Bob said that he thought that all politicians should be drafted from the voter roles! (yikes, that would be scary!)
I just hope whomever we get into office will have the guts to turn this country back around, and improve our reputation in the rest of the world.
Rain, again, you have written a piece worthy of a national newspaper. This whole US Attorney thing has been so confusing to me although the last few days, NPR's reporting seemed to clarify things for me. I know that the whole appointments thing is so wrong. NPR was reporting that many appointees of Bush's, who are incompetent, are running the Green Zone in Iraq. You don't get appointed because of your experience or competence; that's for sure--and we all know it.
As for Mary Louis idea that politicans should be drafted from the voter roles, count me out. Believe me, you wouldn't want this wuss in your government. But, you, Rain, would make a good draftee.
Your comments about Obama are very interesting as I've had concerns about his lack of experience. What concerns me about most lawyer politicians is that their verbal skills are often honed. They know language and body language and how to manipulate. What they say almost sounds too good to be true. He couldn't be that incorrupt! But, then to be a politician in the first place draws a certain kind of person--and most of why they run for office has little to do with helping their constituency. It has to do with power and getting their agenda accepted. Every day this particular administration slips down the drain another inch. At what point will they simply fall into the sanitation treatment tank and be chemically disposed of?
As for Obamas experience, I agree that not having a DC insider is probably a good thing, but Obama is not an executive he is one of 535 legislators he has no experience being the big kahuna. Mitt Romney was on a local radio show today since the candidates are spending time in Cali because we are moving our primary up next year. I knew that he had turned the SLC Olympics around, but I didnt know what a succesful businessman he was before he got into politics. I think he is a moderate republican that many Americans could get behind like Arnold or Giuliani. The fact that he is a morman does not bother me anymore after hearing the interview and report today.
so, ingineer, you like the idea of someone who lies to get into office or has opinions that shift with the office he is running for? Rommey is against abortion, against gay marriage, has lied about both to get the governorship of Massachusetts. If he deceived them, you think he's telling it straight now? To me, he's been dishonest on his views on issues before, how would anyone know what he really believes on anything.
As for CEO experience, I doubt you have bothered to find out what he did before he ran for the Senate but he was in the Illinois legislature, worked on inner city groups for helping with this or that.
Right now I am not in favor of one particular democrat, just know it's not going to be any of the republicans. I will be giving money to three of them, Richardson, Edwards and Obama. I kind of like them in that order but doubt Richardson has much of a shot at it. I like his commonsense approach. Edwards favors issues that I like.
Obama lost some credibility for me when he tried to parse the question on whether being a homosexual is immoral. Answer it but do it honestly. It's easy for Republicans. They know how scared their base is of homosexuality and they are all against it to one degree or another. Lucky for them they weren't born that way, huh... or if they were, they'd have to live lives of fraud. I should write about that with Pace bringing it all up again.
And thanks Fran, but I think I'd go nuts if I had to write about this kind of stuff all the time. Right now there seem to be a lot of things that are out there and they make me feel I should write on them, but it's soooooooo depressing to think on it deeply. The more I do, the darker my mood gets. I don't know how the commentators who do this week after week end up without ulcers.
You do a great job of snythesizing a lot of disparate information. I'm glad that you write it all day. I'm often thinking lots of the same things, but just can't bring myself to write it.
About Obama, I tend to shy away from people who are so charismatic. As Fran says, he's got the whole lawyerly thing down. He understand the power of words and uses them with incredible distinction. I want more experience, more honesty, more earthiness.
fortunately I have the painting to ground me into something else.
Who is the candidate that you feel is more earthy, robin? I am still trying to decide what I think about those three but i also like Biden to some levels also. He has little chance. I am not a fan of Hillary at all and am hoping she doesn't get it but that seems most likely given the Clinton machine's power.
Ok Rain you seem to be going on the attack here, so bring it on. First for Obama, your argument does not help him as far as I am concerned. He still has not been in the executive branch like all the governors that are running. He is the pied piper as far as I am concerned and I am not ready to support him. I may re-think that in 6 years if he is still around.
As for Romney he is a politician, they all lie to get into office. I know you dont like Hillary but you dont think she is really the conservative that she makes her self out to be to try and get the moderate vote do you? I don't like Edwards because he is trial lawyer. I really like Giuliani, I don't care how many times he has been married. He is tough on crime and strong on defense. But more of a social liberal. I think he fits the majority of Americans than any of the other candidates, but he has problems with the extreme right wing of the party.
Romney is against gay marriage but I think he has said that he is for civil unions which is ok with me and what most Americans agree with. That is why all the gay marriage laws keep failing at the ballot box. He is for stem cell research, which I think is in line with most Americans also. I do not think he has a real chance, but he said some good things when I listened to him.
Don't over react to what General Pace said. I heard his original statement and his apology. He said that he had been brought up to believe that homosexual behavior is immoral. Which I am sure many Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims of his generation were. He is not advocating any change to the Clinton Don't Ask/Don't Tell Policy.
On a side note, your comment about what prosecutors go after is interesting here locally. We have a District Attorney that has a god complex and some other county officials that have some strange priorities. The sheriffs department along with DA and county supervisor support spent hundreds of hours in the local strip club to investigate if any laws were being broken. After something like 8 months with as many as 4 officers going to the strip club they charged two girls with prostitution and the manager with something drug related to steroids with the bouncers. All the charges were eventually dropped or found not guilt except one or two misdemeanors. Which they probably could have got if they would have just walked into the place with no investigation.
So here we are in the Meth Lab capital of the world and hardly any sheriffs on patrol, but we spent thousands of dollars on this moral battle with a strip club. It makes no sense to me.
To me Romney is a fraud but what he currently is espousing suits the right wing agenda-- against abortion and against gay marriage. He would say it was immoral to be born gay if anybody asked him. I will never vote for him... And Guiliani is not really that experienced in national politics. The firemen are down on him or so they said yesterday. He posed well in 9/11 aftermath but as for real actions, he didn't have the power. His business dealings are suspect and while I don't care how many wives he has had, it will probably stand between him and the nomination. I have heard he has more of a dictator mentality than bush.
I don't see where CEO experience that supposedly Bush had made any difference in his level of incompetence. That's how he was sold to the American people and we can see how well that came out.
Hillary's husband was a southern conservative on many issues but I am sick of Clintons and you didn't see her on my short list. She will get my vote though if it's her and any of the current Republicans.
I am not an obama fan, as I said, but it's more how much commonsense someone has than how much CEO experience. Perot had that but what he didn't know was how to get people to work together. I think that matters more than dictator complex which obviously has been Bush.
My favorite right now is Richardson, next is Edwards but they are not most likely as things stand. I wish more Americans would take the time to decide what agendas they really valued the most.
Gay marriage matters more than most think. Make gays on a level with heterosexuals for how they are looked at, quit seeing them as some perversion and it might do more to normalize a lot of their behavior than anything else. As things stand when a young man realizes he's gay, a lot of them feel they have lost all moral compasses and go off the deep end for the kind of debasing behavior they can become involved with.. and yes I do believe there is morally debasing behavior but just man to man sex isn't it. It's when sex is not valued and part of a deeper relationship-- which has been denied to gays. I say give them what everybody else has and let them see that they have the same obligations to be moral as say er uh... newt gingrich *s* I would all all marriage civil unions on the government side and let churches continue to damn gays to hell if they so choose. Government should stay out of it.
As for the military, I wasn't so much criticizing Pace, just saying it brings up something. The guy is Catholic, what else could he believe but what he said. He's in a church that teaches it is the road to hell if you are gay and he believes their teaching. His mistake, and he apologized for it, was bringing it up in his role as military leader
There is talk the Senator Fred Thompson might run. I dont know much about him other than he has face recognition from being an actor which is something voters seem to like.
You are right about Perot, he would have been Hitler had he actually got elected. He had some good ideas but GM paid him $600 million just to go away because he was such a pain in the ass.
The firemen were really down on Hillary right after 9/11, now they are going with what their political union leaders are saying and that has to be democrat no matter what.
Maybe because I live in California where gays are treated pretty much like equals I dont see it as big of a deal. I think they should get equal treatment as far as the law goes, but dont know if it should be called marriage. To me there are a lot of other issues that should be determining who we vote for than that one.
The reason it's democrat no matter what is 6 years of absolute power for republicans where all they cared about was improving situations for the richest among us. After that, why would any working, middle class person support the republican party except in one area-- sexual morality laws.
To me when a politician says they respect women but then would take away their right to choose-- and many of those would limit birth control also-- then they do not respect women's right to think for themselves. It usually is about abortion on the surface but under it it's about women period. Many of those, who see things that way, have laws on the books that limit how many sex toys you can own (arizona being among them). Who does that impact besides the person buying them? but it's about sex.
Sometimes I think republicans are the most hung up on sex of any people out there. They are so worried somebody else will be having it in a way they disapprove of-- for instance the sodomy laws-- which btw are about oral sex as well as anal.
They say Fred thompson isn't making any serious run for it. I think he's single. It's Newt Gingrich and his hypocrisy which has the best shot at taking over Bush's hypocrisy role. but they all have the wrong stance onissues as far as I am concerned and I am issue oriented. I don't want anybody else in there who gives tax breaks that my grandkids will still be paying for. I want fiscally responsible people and despite the supposed reputation of Republicans to be that, they have had the control these last years and look at what they did!
The republican Congress and W have been on a spending frenzy just as good as any democrat that is for sure. But the unions have been backing Dem candidates for a lot longer than W has been in office. That has nothing to do with him. Here in the State elections the unions backed every Dem candidate even the one that the liberal newspapers were not backing because of corruption charges.
On the sex laws I agree that they are unnecesarry and I dont like hypocrasy from anyone regardless of political affiliation. But as for the sodomy laws most of those are in Southern States where they were passed by Democrats because no Republican could get elected because a Republican freed the slaves. It is same with the Blue laws concerning alcohol.
Unions (and there are good and bad in every group anywhere) back democrats because democrats stand with the working man, those who need unions to get good working conditions, hours and pay. Republicans have done all they can to squash unions ongoing to today-- making it harder for unions to organize. Why would a union back a republican? My father and my grandfather were union men. I grew up with understanding unions are not all good but corporations are not in there to protect the working guy. They are there, by necessity, to protect their profits, owners which are now days also stockholders. Unions came into being because of bad working conditions. Go back into the beginning of the 20th century and look at how it was for the average Joe in a factory. That's why there were unions. Naturally there have been abuses leading to today where they are less and less a factor. But the average worker has no real clout to demand better conditions. It takes uniting to do that.It is unfortunate that whenever you get power, you get abuses and unions were no exception
I agree that unions were created for a good reason. But now they are killing jobs as often as they are protecting them. They seem to only care about their own power and government employee and teachers unions seem like the worst of the bunch. It is impossible to fire bad employees.
Also you are right the Democrat party was the party of the working man, but now I think at least the Dem leadership panders more to the liberal elite and far left environmental nuts than to the working man.
Liberal elite? So like who is this liberal elite? The ones who are concerned about the conditions of the poor? The ones who worry about the environment being ruined for the almighty dollar? Liberal elites make it sound like they have a lot of money. Odd that they'd not be promoting tax cuts for themselves.
That elite, you are talking about, today is in the Republican party and yeah, they don't give a damn about the environment. It's all about counting their dollars and they figure they are immune to the worst of what might be coming due to climate change not only because of the money but the rest assume God will bail them out. In the past they didn't live in places like Love Canal or where the mines were polluting the air and water as they did in Libby, Montana (read up on that if you think that corporations care about working people's health).
Liberal elite. That's funny... and sounds very much like Republican spin... You sure you're not one of those rabid right wingers...
Rain-- I realize I had a typo in my first comment here. I meant to say that I'm glad you write it all down (not "all day").
I am not a fan of Hillary, Biden, or Obama. I like Richardson. I think I could tolerate Edwards. I love Al Gore. He won the first time, but was cheated by both his handlers and the Supreme Court. I don't know if he would run, but I do think he would make a good president. Richardson is really an interesting candidate. He deserves more attention than he is getting. He's got executive leadership skills, foreign relations skills, and a genuinely warm and delightful personality. I think he's someone to watch.
On the Republican side, I am most afraid of Gingrich. He seems very full of himself, and does not appreciate the laws of the Constitution. I've had enough of that kind of "leadership."
I like Gore too but I do doubt he's planning to run. Richardson might do better as people get to know him. Unfortunately so much of this is decided before people get that chance. All about money which is why I want to donate to the candidates I like best. Right now I think that'd be Richardson and Edwards. Obama I am reserving judgement on. From what I have skimmed, his book had good ideas in it but being a leader is more than writing a book.
Gore did not get cheated. Every recount that was done after the supreme court decision whether by the New York Times or whoever still had Bush winning.
I am not a rabid right winger I am a prochoice pro death penalty social moderate and a fiscal conservative that is strong on defense.
By liberal elite I mean the university professor crowd that still teaches socialism is the way and the Tim Robbins Susan Sarandon hollywood crowd that wants to tell me how to live but then not live that way themselves.
I dont think Gingrich has a chance in a general election. Too many people are afraid of him.
I could get behind Richardson and would support him as president but would not vote for him if he was running against Giuliani.
On Love Canal I dont think they had a check box whether you were a democrat or a republican when you bought a house there. Same as the Uranium mines in New Mexico for the atomic bomb projects they were ran by private companies but pushed by the government. It is an American tragedy regardless of your political affiliation.
Didnt Al Gore's father have a lot to do with the company that was responsible for Love Canal? And maybe even Al Gore himself if memory serves.
i am not saying ordinary people in both parties don't pay for environmental disasters. There is no blood on the lintel to protect families which is why it amazes me when anybody in the middle class supports the right wing of the republican party. It is leaders and bosses who escape the consequences and hence don't care about the environment in their calculations.
As for Gore, we will have to agree to disagree on that. A lot of those Florida ballots were marked for Buchanan and Gore. Tell me how that happens? I can give you a good guess. Phony practice ballots which led a lot of people, who don't see well, to mark in those two names and thereby lose their votes. It's all it took to cause Bush to win and frankly hanging chads were a red herring. Gore would have won with fair balloting-- which I hear Florida still does not have. There was no way to prove fraud though and Gore did what Nixon did when Kennedy probably lost that election but Nixon decided not to contest it due to the damage it would do to the nation to find that level of cheating in Texas and Chicago.
As for Guiliani, I think before it's finished, you won't be so gung ho on him. There is a lot there that has not been touched on and most people know little about his real abilities.
And the more that comes out on those US attorneys, the more rotten that looks...
That is exactly why a lot of good people will not run for president. Every thing that you ever did in your life will get scrutinized and maybe even some things that you did not even do. The attack dogs on both sides go after the other candidates.
Post a Comment