Mar 20 2007
Giving Dems & Media The Rope To Hang With
All of those who quit on the administration, who called for Gonzales to step down, who looked forward to a replacement – in essence every conservative and Republican who sided with the liberal dems – welcome to a lesson in both backbone and timing:
President Bush warned Democrats Tuesday to accept his offer to allow top aides to testify about the firings of federal prosecutors only privately and not under oath, or risk a constitutional showdown from which he would not back down.
“We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants,” Bush said in a statement from the White House. “I proposed a reasonable way to avoid an impasse.”
Bush allowed the story an opportunity to dissipate (it was all inside baseball and only about 8 disgruntled ex-officials). So he gave it a chance to collapse and kept is powder dry. He also allowed the Dems to go on the talk shows this weekend and make a big deal about the issue – running out on their collective limbs. And then he used a dinner-time press conference from the WH to hoist the libs on their own pittard.
This is the art of political jujitsu. Not just any issue is this trivial to defend, this constitutionally solid and this easy to communicate to the American people. And it is not that often Dems go this far off half-cocked on an issue which, when compared to Bill Clinton’s removal of nearly 100 AGs over is tenure, is easy to tar them as cheap hypocrites. And that is why those who caved really should be ashamed of themselves. I grew up in DC and this PR game is not as it always seems, which it is wise to stick by your principles and stick by your guns. Appeasement never works. And cutting your losses was never an option on this matter. Bush waited to make sure this was an issue he needed to use his bullypulpit on – and that is why he did not – correctly – respond like this last week when the media would have ignored his comments. It had to build before his response would carry large weight.
The result of such great timing is that Bush is helping to tank the nation’s support of the Dem’s, since clearly they have wasted their first two months on vendettas, vengeance and feel good propaganda and NOT on dealing with the nation’s most important issues. And when that image of Dems solidifies we get poll results like this, where Dems are sinking and Bush is rising. Note Reps are not rising – just Bush. Maybe that is because everyone is turned off by people clamoring for other people to resign instead of proposing workable solutions. (H/T to Mac Ranger on the new poll numbers). All those who demanded Bush get a backbone should now eat their crow. Where was their backbone in supporting Bush and his REPUBLICAN administration?
Bush is doing the honorable thing, but Washington is not Texas. Washington is a snake-pit where people destroy other people in order to enjoy power, money, and privilege. Bush needs to stand up for himself in this environment. And other people who are tired of this kind of political gamesmanship need to stand up as well.
More on the US Attorney Psuedo-Scandal…
Yesterday, I posted a pretty harsh critique of the White Houses efforts to fight back over the 8 fired US Attorneys. Today however brought some encouraging signs.
First, from AFP Bush backs embattled top law official
US President George W. Bush Tuesd…
Bush will get his behind handed to him if Rove and Miers refuse to testify after being subpoenaed. The idea of executive privilege – like the mythical Unitary Executive – is a pipe dream.
During Watergate, even John Ehrlichman and Bob Haldeman were forced to testify.
Karl Rove is a serial liar; he is going to get another chance to win himself a perjury indictment. You saw it here first: Rove will testify.
Sooth:
In your dreams. Bush will set the limits for this. There is no crime here, no one should have to testify just because a bunch of Democrats are on a witch hunt.
To most people this just looks like politics.
Let’s look at what White House spokesperson Tony Snow says about executive privilege:
We must repeat: Bush will cave to pressure and Rove will testify with his tail between his legs, like the lying hound he is.
Rove a lying hound? Certainly an objective statement. Why should anyone cave in to you damn Democrats?
Democrats live in Fantasyland. They actually believe the propaganda they put out. Either that, or they’re being disingenuous.
By the way, the Democrats’ main complaint is that these U.S. Attorneys will actually investigate Democrats.
Fats in the fire!
Turdblossom will be subpoenaed:
How long before Bush caves in?
Congress will lose their subpoenas in the courts. Dems fell into Bush’s trap. Stick a fork in the Dems
Big whoop. We knew already that the Dems were going to start puking up subpoenas because they said they would last night — “within 24 hours,” they said. Gee, I wonder what they’ll ask. What’ll they do, ask Rove if he’s corrupt and then press charges for perjury when he says “no”?
This is what happens when you give Democrats the power — they squander it playing a high-stakes version of “Tommy’s poking me, Mom” with their political enemies. They’ll probably impeach Bush next February over some phrase or other in his next State of the Union address or something equally petty — and the rest of us will be thinking, “Oh, this is just more politics.”
The Dems will get to this right after they figure out who leaked Plame’s name. And after they cure AIDS and homelessness.
Based upon what legal precedence do you make this preposterous claim? You may well be too young to recall – but Nixon made similar claims during Watergate – and yet the tapes were turned over – and Messrs. Erlichman and Haldeman meekly trotted up the Hill to tesify.
Ditto John Mitchell – the Attorney General – who wound up serving hard time for obstruction and conspiracy.
Same thing happened to Clinton – he stalled and delayed – but eventually his underlings testified.
I was right about the Libby trial – and I’ll be right about this, too. Rove WILL testify.
That’s why the Democrats got elected to Congress. To have endless investigations of non-scandals. They’re wasting the public’s time, for their own political purposes. A Washington game that is played frequently.
Somebody on another thread (Crosspatch, I think it was) pointed out that two very, VERY good reasons to resist mightily against having people testify in public under oath were that:
(1) Once you’re under oath in a public hearing, the Democrats don’t have to restrict their questions to the subject for which you’ve been subpoenaed or otherwise summoned before Congress. They could subpoena you over attorneys fired over politics and then fire questions at you about Plame, or WMDs in Iraq, or stuff a colleague of yours did twenty years ago, or whatever else the Dems think they can use to make themselves look heroic.
(2) The Libby precedent has been set. If you say one thing and some reporter says something else, there is at least the chance that a prosecutor can convince a D.C. jury that you’ve committed perjury, even if no crime was involved at all.
That’s a helluva combination. No wonder Bush is fighting to avoid having Rove and Miers testify in public under oath. Under rules like these, it doesn’t matter if you have anything to hide or not.
Close – but no cigar. What you should have said was: That’s why the PEOPLE elected Democrats to Congress – to conduct oversight on the lawless and criminal Bush Administration.
And the Democrats are honoring the wishes of their (majority) consitutency. Get over it – it’s a democracy – and the people have spoken.
Riiiight. The people have decided that they WANT Congress to spend the next two years banging the drum endlessly about Bush’s supposed lawlessness instead of actually doing anything about it. For Chrissakes, it’s been six years already! Where are the indictments? How frigging long does it take? All of this straining and screaming and the Dems managed to get ONE person for perjury (unconnected to any crime for which charges will be brought)? For heaven’s sake, the spin was that the Clintons were simply persecuted over sex, and yet Ken Starr managed to get, what, fourteen convictions? And Congress is only waving their “authorized” subpoenas in the air and threatening to issue them. If this is what the voters want, why didn’t they just issue them? Congress only has twenty-two months left to play poke-the-animal-in-the-cage-with-a-stick with the Bush administration; shouldn’t they be moving a bit faster if they’ve really got anything on the White House? Or did the voters decide that they actually WANT these blowhards to just stand there for two years yelling about how bad the Bush crowd is without actually doing anything about the problem???
Everyone seems to be missing the point in the comparrison between Clinton firing all US attorneis when he took office and Bush firing 8 who weren’t doing their jobs to suit him. The reason Bill Clinton fired all US Attorneys when he took office was to STOP the prosecution of Democrats who had committed serious crimes. It was months before some of these fired attornies were replaced. Has anyone bothered to make a list of all the big time Democrat high rollers who had charges against them dismissed immediately after Clinton took office? My bet is that it would make the number of last minute pardons look minescule.
You can start the list with Clark Clifford, Jimmy Carter’s Attorney General, who was under indictment for aiding and abetting middle eastern money men to get control of and then loot US banks Just how much of that money went to finance today’s terrorists’ training is anyone guess. Second on that list should be Sen. Harold Ford Sr. who was under indictment for mail fraud among other things. During his losing Senate campaign, Harold Jr., who has just been hired on as a Fox News Analyst, said his father was exonerated, but he wasn’t. The Clintonista Justice Dept. dropped all the charges against Ford Sr. Harold Jr. also claimed to be a lawyer altho he flunked the bar exam. But what the heck. He is semi black and charismatic like Obama, and that alone makes him a perfect example of someone qualified to advise the American people of political issues.