Is Gonzales gonna get the axe?

[Chairboy]

This attorneys firing story is almost movie-villain crazy.  Will the White House sacrifice Gonzales?

[Kieran]

Is that a rhetorical question?

Of course. His name is ruined to the point of him being ineffective. It's a lost cause to fight it now.

All that's left is to find some noble way to spin his exit.

[CHECKERS]

Originally posted by Chairboy
This attorneys firing story is almost movie-villain crazy.  Will the White House sacrifice Gonzales?

  I hope so !, but I really do not think Bush  is gona axe one of his " North American Union"  supporters .....

[john9001]

what crime did he commit?

[Toad]

The same one Reno committed when she fired all 93 US attorneys?

Just guessing here.

[Chairboy]

I think the Clinton/Reno thing was a bit different because they did it right after the inauguration, which is a perogative, and there's no evidence it was being done to punish a small group that wouldn't 'play ball'.

The real problem here isn't so much the firing, it's the other thing that's changed.  The renewal of the Patriot Act contained a provision which allowed the replacements to be made without Congressional approval. Previously, US Attorneys had to be approved by Congress.  Now, no such congressional involvement is necessary.

[Toad]

LOL!

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

The next day Miss Reno called for resignations. Jay Stephens, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., resigned that afternoon, commenting that he had been within thirty days of a "critical decision" about Rostenkowski.

[quintv]

If people didn't believe the media had an agenda,,well,, hell I'm starting to believe.

This "scandal" is a complete fabrication. Its the President's prerogative to sack and replace U.S Attorneys for whatever reason under the sun.

This is an embarrassment.

[lazs2]

yep... not only that but klinton sacked em all... 93 as toad points out...  while they were still serving their terms and... he flat out said that they had to go so that he could "form his team"...  pure politics.

Bush on the other hand is following the tradition of letting the judges serve their terms and then letting them go...  He is actually being pretty wussy about it.

It matters not how you do it tho if the media is out for your blood and conversly, it matters not how outrageous your behavior (klinton) if they are in love with you.   The ones kilinton hired heard his case on his whitewater swindle.   He appointed the judges who would hear the case against him... they ignored evidence.   The press found this not worth getting upset about.   I don't recall anyone worried about the reputations or livelyhood of the 93 judges fired by him or about him stating that he did it for political reasons..

lazs

[Shamus]

Originally posted by Toad
The same one Reno committed when she fired all 93 US attorneys?

Just guessing here.

One of the few in here that gets it.

The Bush administration is no better than the Clinton administration.

shamus

[lasersailor184]

I think he will.  As time goes on, the pair of balls I thought Bush had turns out to be a pair of ovaries.

[Gunslinger]

Originally posted by lasersailor184
I think he will.  As time goes on, the pair of balls I thought Bush had turns out to be a pair of ovaries.

I'm in complete agreement with you.  Being a lame duck president it's like he's acting as if he still needs to get re-elected some how.

[bj229r]

I was about to start a thread on this the other day..WHY is this news? I'm REALLY failing to understand how it has gained the significance it has, other than Gonzales' typical mealy-mouthed responses to adversarial interviews, which only worsens such things. (The man IS weak) The US Attorneys are political appointees, and can be chucked out at any time--the 8 in question failed to follow administration objectives in various areas,

An excerpt from the March 14 Wall Street Journal editorial:

    ....The supposed scandal this week is that Mr. Bush had been informed last fall that some U.S. Attorneys had been less than vigorous in pursuing voter-fraud cases and that the President had made the point to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Voter fraud strikes at the heart of democratic institutions, and it was entirely appropriate for Mr. Bush--or any President--to insist that his appointees act energetically against it.

    Take sacked U.S. Attorney John McKay from Washington state. In 2004, the Governor's race was decided in favor of Democrat Christine Gregoire by 129 votes on a third recount. As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and other media outlets reported, some of the "voters" were deceased, others were registered in storage-rental facilities, and still others were convicted felons. More than 100 ballots were "discovered" in a Seattle warehouse. None of this constitutes proof that the election was stolen. But it should have been enough to prompt Mr. McKay, a Democrat, to investigate, something he declined to do, apparently on grounds that he had better things to do....

http://newsbusters.org/node/11428

And even if they were all PERFECT, they can be fired without cause....?

Only possibility is if someone can prove some or all were fired because they were investigating Administration friends, and it would be utterly pointless to do that--it's not as if no one would notice a correlation.

They are supposed to concentrate on the stuff which the Administration WANTS them to concentrate on---Do you think the Microsoft anti-trust thing would have happened had not Clinton fired ALL 93 US ATTORNEYS when he assumed office?

[Kieran]

Reagan fired all his attorney appointees too. It happens.

[john9001]

it is protocol for all US attorneys to tender resignations when the administration changes, those the new admin wants to keep are kept others are let go.

US attorney's are political appointees, and can be hired and fired at will.