By Jesselyn Radack, commenting on the statement by Monica Goodling's attorneys that what's happening to her is reminiscent of Senator Joseph McCarthy:

And as for McCarthyism, the best example is this Administration's behavior during the past six years. It has rounded up hundreds of Arab and Muslim men based on racial and ethnic profiling and bogus material witness warrants; kept 500+ people in the legal black hole otherwise known a Guantanamo bay; held people, including American citizens, without charge, conviction or judicial review; reversed the usual presumption into a bastardized "guilty until proven innocent" standard; denied due process under the inaply-named Patriot Act; conducted secret trials; tortured; eavesdropped on American's phone calls; wiretapped citizens without warrant; put anti-war protesters and political dissidents on terrorist watch lists; resurrected long-interred relics of the McCarthy era like denying entry to aliens for pure speech; and gone on witch-hunts and missions of personal destruction that make Eugene McCarthy look like Floyd Abrams. Terrorism is the new Communism.

Labels: monica goodling, purgegate

By VictorM: When confronted with possible wrong-doing by someone in their flock, right-wingers go into deflection mode. If you recall, with Mark Foley, they started pushing the "when did Democrats know?" defense rather than deal with the skeevy details of the man's behavior. In the case of Purgegate, the common refrain from them now is that "Democrats are just after Rove".

OK, let's for the moment assume they are correct, Democrats want to nail Karl Rove. I have a few questions for you, right-wingers:

1. What is wrong with going after Rove? After all, Rove has been toxic in American politics for a long time, is the architect behind using 9/11 and the Iraq war for political gain, and has been the mastermind of numerous shady campaign practices. Doesn't matter if you agree or not, if Democrats think he's corrupt, why shouldn't they try to prove it?

2. Even if that is the Democrats' sole intention, does that alter the facts of the Purgegate case? After all, Monica Goodling pleading the 5th, Kyle Sampson contradicting his boss, and Alberto Gonzales blatantly lying are strong signals that there is something serious being hidden. There's plenty to investigate for very good reasons. Unless you hate democracy, that is. Do you?

3. Do you believe that just because people consider themselves conservatives they are incapable of being corrupt or incompetent? Among the millions of members of your flock, aren't there some bad apples? Why not get rid of them?

Protecting corruption or incompetence in the government is something you should not stand for, but you do. Why is that? Could it have something to do with the massive quantity of bad apples you'd find, including yourself? Could it be because you know that unless you lie and cheat you will never get into power?

So, are Democrats out to get Rove? I sure hope so. For if they get him, they take a big bite out of corruption. And if that happens, democracy wins, America wins. You'd have to be unpatriotic to be against that.

Labels: karl rove, kyle sampson, monica goodling, purgegate, right-wing

By VictorM: The more we learn about Purgegate the more disturbing things become. Forget for a moment whether there are illegal or unethical activity. Just the knowledge that people like Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling, who have extremely thin resumes and amazing lack of experience, were placed in the position of recommending the removal of far more experienced attorneys boggles the mind.

This is not a partisan issue, at least it shouldn't be. Shouldn't we, no matter what political party is in power, expect that qualified people get hired for important positions?

Something is really rotten with the way this administration conducts business and even worse, with those who defend their behavior.

Labels: kyle sampson, monica goodling, purgegate

By Kevin Drum, talking about the Bush administration:

They've now had nearly two months to come up with a simple, clear, understandable explanation for why they chose those eight to fire but not the others. So what is it? And why has it taken such an interminable amount of internal chaos to come up with something?

People aren't stupid. If there were a simple, innocent explanation we would have heard it in January. The fact that the president of the United States held a press conference eight weeks after this issue first hit the media and still didn't have a plausible story to tell suggests pretty strongly that there is no plausible story to tell.

Labels: bush administration, kevin drum, purgegate, us attorneys

By BobcatJH, concluding a post that contains research justifying the statement that the Bush administration top brass do not use e-mail:

If you couple the president's obvious distrust of e-mail communications with the fact that both he and other top officials don't use e-mail, a picture begins to emerge. When you add to these facts the notion that other administration officials are conducting official business using unofficial e-mail addresses, the picture becomes clearer. Given this administration's history of avoidance of openness and distrust of democracy, this matter is definitely worthy of further discussion and research. One doesn't doubt that, the more stones we overturn, the more we'll find. And something else lost in this is that these are our employees. They work for us. They may not think so, but the inconvenient truth is that they do. And when they're conducting our business, their communications should be subject to our oversight. Anything short of that, anything that attempts to either cloud or circumvent the transparency that lies at the heart of our democracy is, quite simply, un-American. Do you have something to hide, Mr. President? Does your administration? America deserves an answer.

Labels: bush administration, e-mail, purgegate, white house

By pointsoflight, commenting on president Bush's press conference and White House unwillingness to testify under oath:

Exerting executive privilege and not allowing testimony under oath only shows that they're hiding things. If it's just a personnel issue that's getting blown out of proportion, wouldn't you just come clean. Even the average Joe understands that this smells rotten...that they're now engaged in a full-blown cover up.

Labels: cover-up, George Bush, press conference, purgegate

By VictorM: After Purgegate -- the firing of federal prosecutors by the Bush administration for political motives -- picked-up steam, one of the cries of those defending the administration was that "Clinton also did it". Among those paying attention that claim has been totally debunked, but with this crowd, it never hurts to pile on.

Bob Barr was a Reagan appointee who went on to serve as a member of the House from 1995 to 2003. It was during this period that Mr. Barr became a prominent member of the conservative movement. He was a relentless pursuer of articles of impeachment against Bill Clinton. Here's what he said in a Rolling Stone interview:

I and a number of others were critical of president Clinton when he first came into office and almost immediately removed all U.S. Attorneys. But that’s not the same thing as what’s happening now.

We’re seeing a president in his second term go after U.S. attorneys of his own party for reasons that are clearly political: not moving fast enough against targets on the other side of the aisle, succumbing to pressure from Senators for example. That is very, very corrosive, both to morale for U.S. Attorneys as well as in terms of reducing the confidence that the public has that the system is fair and impartial and non-partisan.

Labels: bill clinton, bob barr, clinton also did it, purgegate, rolling stone

By VictorM: The pattern by this White House continues in the same manner it did with the Scooter Libby case. That is, they deny, they evade, they lie, all along claiming they did nothing wrong. If they did nothing wrong, why the lies? Here's the latest example:

E-mails released this week, including a set issued Thursday night by the Justice Department, appear to contradict the administration's assertion that Bush's staff had only limited involvement in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, which Democrats have suggested were a politically motivated purge... The latest e-mails between White House and Justice Department officials show that Rove inquired in early January 2005 about firing U.S. attorneys

We're only scratching the surface on this case. Does this mean they did something wrong and are trying to hide it? Their pattern of behavior surely suggests that.

They were so used to getting away with criminal and unethical activity that they weren't even careful. This is what happens to people who do the things they do simply because they can -- eventually, they get caught.

Labels: carl rove, prosecutors, purgegate, scooter libby

By mageen, commenting on allegations that Clinton also fired prosecutors:

Take a better look at this so-called comparison between the Clinton [Department of Justice] and the Bush/Rove/Gonzalez [Department of Justice]. It is customary to require the resignation of all presidential appointees from the previous administration. Just ask Linda Tripp. The difference here is that this clutch of fired prosecutors were let go for cause despite their glowing performance reviews. In their case, there was a pattern displayed by [Department of Justice]/White House. The cause in their cases were mostly the fact that they were following the law in prosecuting Republican "friends" of the Bush White House. In the Clinton [Department of Justice], there were really only two remarkable cases of firing for cause: one attorney tried to choke a reporter and another attorney bit a woman.

Labels: alberto gonzales, bill clinton, prosecutors, purgegate

By VictorM: No matter how things play out with the firing of the prosecutors and whether any heads roll over this fiasco, and no matter how the Republicans try to spin this with the "Clinton also did it" lie, at least one positive is coming out of this: Alberto "Abu" Gonzales' shot -- if he ever had one -- at the Supreme Court is history.

Labels: alberto gonzales, purgegate, supreme court

By VictorM: Talk of the prosecutors' purge continues to dominate many liberal blogs. The consensus being that this was a rotten thing by a rotten administration, and damn it, they got caught. JuliaAnn has quite an interesting take. I really recommend that her post be read in its entirety, but here's the gist of it:
The reasons JuliaAnn gives are quite compelling and thought provoking. Go read it!

Labels: prosecutors, purgegate

By Carpetbagger Report: As the prosecutor purge scandal continues to become more serious and more damaging for the Bush gang, the right has struggled to come up with a coherent defense. They seem to have embraced one, but it’s surprisingly weak [that Clinton also did it].

The argument is premised on a mistaken understanding of how the process works. When a president takes office, he or she nominates federal prosecutors at the beginning of the first term. Under normal circumstances, these U.S. Attorneys serve until the next president is sworn in.

In 1993, Clinton replaced H.W. Bush’s prosecutors. In 2001, Bush replaced Clinton’s prosecutors. None of this is remotely unusual. Indeed, it’s how the process is designed.

The difference with the current scandal is overwhelming. Bush replaced eight specific prosecutors, apparently for purely political reasons. This is entirely unprecedented. For conservatives to argue, as many are now, that Clinton’s routine replacements for H.W. Bush’s USAs is any way similar is the height of intellectual dishonesty. They know better, but hope their audience is too uninformed to know the difference.

Labels: clinton's fault, prosecutors, purgegate

By figleef, commenting on reports that prosecutors were purged for not being aggressive enough with voter fraud cases:

"Voter Fraud" is the GOP euphemism for removing blacks and city dwellers off the voting rolls. They "believe" that many of these people are convicted felons, dead people, democrats or otherwise ineligible to vote. The GOP likes to use behind-the-scenes legal maneuvering to challenge voter lists, and apparently were disappointed that the US Attorneys didn't pursue this tactic as fervently as they wanted.

Labels: purgegate, voter fraud