Alberto Gonzales resigns

The rats are jumping off the sinking ship.

A longtime friend of Bush, who once considered him for appointment to the Supreme Court, Gonzales is the fourth high-ranking administration official to leave since November 2006. Donald H. Rumsfeld, an architect of the Iraq war, resigned as defense secretary one day after the November elections. Paul Wolfowitz agreed in May to step down as president of the World Bank after an ethics inquiry. And top Bush adviser Karl Rove earlier this month announced he was stepping down.

Andy in Harrisburg

How much jail time should she do?

As pointed out in a column by Anna Quindlen in Newsweek and on America Blog, Planned Parenthood and the National Institute for Reproductive Health have launched a provocative new campaign to ask, "How much time should she serve?" If abortions become illegal, what should be the punishment for women who have an illegal abortion?

Quindlen writes:

Nearly 20 years ago, in a presidential debate, George Bush the elder was asked this very question, whether in making abortion illegal he would punish the woman who had one. "I haven't sorted out the penalties," he said lamely. Neither, it turns out, has anyone else. But there are only two logical choices: hold women accountable for a criminal act by sending them to prison, or refuse to criminalize the act in the first place. If you can't countenance the first, you have to accept the second. You can't have it both ways.

This question was put to a group of anti-abortion demonstrators in Libertyville, IL, which was captured on video and then, of course, uploaded to YouTube.

Andy in Harrisburg

High drama over warrantless surveillance

Wow, it sounds like the testimony of former Deputy AG James Comey was riveting. If you missed it, Comey testified that he, Ashcroft, FBI Director Mueller, and other DOJ officials nearly resigned over the NSA warrantless surveillance program in 2004 when DOJ was refusing to renew the program.

Comey described a race to the hospital where Ashcroft had just had surgery:

When the White House officials appeared minutes later, Mr. Gonzales began to explain to Mr. Ashcroft why they were there. Mr. Comey said Mr. Ashcroft rose weakly from his hospital bed, but in strong and unequivocal terms, refused to approve the eavesdropping program.

"I was angry," Mr. Comey told the committee. "I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me. I thought he had conducted himself in a way that demonstrated a strength I had never seen before, but still I thought it was improper."

Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card quickly departed, but Mr. Comey said he soon got an angry phone call from Mr. Card, demanding that he come to the White House. Mr. Comey said he replied: "After what I just witnessed, I will not meet with you without a witness, and I intend that witness to be the solicitor general of the United States."

The full story is in the New York Times.

Andy in Harrisburg

US Attorneys scandal: The civil liberties angle

It appears two of the US Attorneys among the eight who were dismissed were not trying to kill people with as much zeal as the AG (be it Ashcroft or Gonzo) like. In a story that was first out there a few years ago, the DOJ overruled US Attorneys on multiple occasions when the local prosecutor opted to pursue a life sentence.

But long before this controversy shed light on the political maneuvering between the White House and the Justice Department, two of the fired attorneys were engaged in a largely invisible internal struggle with the Justice Department over its aggressive pursuit of the death penalty.

Both Paul Charlton of Arizona and Margaret Chiara of Michigan have been criticized for failing to seek death sentences with sufficient gusto. Both US Attorneys were pressured to participate in an aggressive campaign begun by former Attorney General John Ashcroft and continued by Gonzales to extend the federal death penalty--particularly into jurisdictions without death-penalty statutes of their own.

Apparently, the Bush Administration has not gotten the memo that the death penalty is on the way out. According to Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center:

"The size of the federal death row has almost tripled from 2000 to the present, during a time when state death row numbers have declined." Indeed, the expansion of the federal death penalty is in direct opposition to declining death penalty trends throughout the country--yet another example of the Bush Administration's deliberate disconnect from its constituents.

(Courtesy Abolish the Death Penalty)

Andy in Harrisburg

NY Times: Gonzales' time is up

Calling him "The Failed Attorney General," the New York Times today called for the ouster of AG Alberto Gonzales, based largely on numerous civil rights and constitutional violations:

He has never stopped being consigliere to Mr. Bush's imperial presidency. If anyone, outside Mr. Bush's rapidly shrinking circle of enablers, still had doubts about that, the events of last week should have erased them.
...
The administration said that, as with many powers it has arrogated since the 9/11 attacks, this radical change was essential to fast and nimble antiterrorism efforts, and it promised to police the use of the letters carefully.

But like so many of the administration's promises, this one evaporated before the ink on those letters could dry. The F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller, admitted Friday that his agency had used the new powers improperly.
...
It was Mr. Gonzales, after all, who repeatedly defended Mr. Bush's decision to authorize warrantless eavesdropping on Americans' international calls and e-mail. He was an eager public champion of the absurd notion that as commander in chief during a time of war, Mr. Bush can ignore laws that he thinks get in his way.
...
The attorney general helped formulate and later defended the policies that repudiated the Geneva Conventions in the war against terror, and that sanctioned the use of kidnapping, secret detentions, abuse and torture. He has been central to the administration's assault on the courts, which he recently said had no right to judge national security policies, and on the constitutional separation of powers.

His Justice Department has abandoned its duties as guardian of election integrity and voting rights. It approved a Georgia photo-ID law that a federal judge later likened to a poll tax, a case in which Mr. Gonzales's political team overrode the objections of the department's professional staff.

The Justice Department has been shamefully indifferent to complaints of voter suppression aimed at minority voters. But it has managed to find the time to sue a group of black political leaders in Mississippi for discriminating against white voters.

No one should hold their breath that Gonzo is going anywhere anytime soon. But kudos to the Times for keeping the heat on an administration that continues to abuse our basic constitutional protections.

Here is national ACLU's response to the revelation about the PATRIOT Act.

Andy in Harrisburg

Or maybe it is enough to make you miss Ashcroft

Some people miss Ashcroft.

Alberto Gonzales is achieving something remarkable, even miraculous, as attorney general: He is making John Ashcroft look good.

And, according to the legend, Ashcroft supported his deputies from a hospital bed in turning down the warrantless surveillance program.

I can't believe I just wrote a post that sounds kind of like a defense of John Ashcroft. That's weird.

Andy in H-burg