Category Archives: Politics: The Party of Sleaze

Via Think Progress , Cheney falls asleep during Cabinet meeting on wildfires.

There's a video of him “meditating”. And then the comments there range from over the top to quite funny.

One of the amazing things about this administration is that what starts out seeming like isolated pockets of corruption gradually takes shape as a pattern, only to be relevaled to be a way of life.

So it is with partisan prosecutions, and the corruption of the once proud US Attorneys offices of the US Dept. of Justice. First we had some bad apples. Then we had signs that the apples were being picked for their rottenness by people in Main Justice. And now we find that when someone gives a prosecutor testimony of having bribed a Republican, the loyal Bushies respond…by indicting a Democrat. Digby has as good an intro as any, as does the Carpetbagger's The hits just keep on coming: U.S. Attorney scandal reaches Mississippi and Did Rove, White House stymie criminal probe in Alabama?.

When the rumors flew yesterday that disgraced and AG Alberto Gonzales would resign and be replaced by Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, I didn't pay much attention. Looked like the memory-impaired Bush loyalist was bunkered in.

But it seems that it's true: Gonzales Resigns as Attorney General – New York Times.

Chertoff you may recall is a former federal judge (and was considered a pretty good one), which argues well for the DoJ job. On the other hand, he's done a lousy job at Homeland Security, and presided over the disaster in New Orleans and the even more disastrous ongoing failures since the floods. Both of which argue that his management talents may not be equal to his legal skills.

But he's loyal.

TPMmuckraker collects “Gonzales' Top Six Fibs”.

Isn't one too many?

Jim Henley writes in No More Mister Nice Gal:

If I needed to describe the Laura Rozen Style in two words, they would be “quietly devastating.” Rozen prefers a level tone, sparse verbiage and the assembly of relevant quotes. So it tells you where we are that she writes something like the following:

There’s a solution no one has thought of here. Congress needs to come back and pass legislation to make perjury no longer a crime. If Gonzales is the example of how you are allowed to lie to Congress, just take it off the books as a crime. Did anyone ever think of that? The Judge Alberto Gonzales Lying is a Sometimes Necessary Form of Protected Free Speech Act of 2007.

Of course, my first reaction is, don’t give them ideas.

But of course the first commentator sets Jim straight:

Congress doesn’t need to legalize perjury. It’s an inherent power of the Executive. And anyway, the power to perjure was reaffirmed in the Authorization to Use Military Force.

Now, that, I can see them arguing.

Update: It has come to my attention that some people need the relevance of the above explained to them. If you are one of those people, look here.