Injustice

Friday, June 1, 2007

Report from the Chairman

Peter Rousselot

I sure hope for the sake of this country that Alberto Gonzalez leaves our Justice Department real soon!

Just when we thought that Georgie and his friends couldn’t top the incompetence they displayed in the “implementation” of the Iraq war or the “response” to Hurricane Katrina, we read several weeks’ worth of stories about the way Alberto Gonzalez has “run” the Justice Department. The botched firings of the U.S. attorneys pyramided mistake on mistake, until the tower of errors is so high we can’t see the top.

It started when Gonzalez, the nation’s top law enforcement officer, defended the U.S. Attorney firings on the grounds that they were all “for good cause,” and were not motivated by political considerations—assuming contrary to the law he was supposed to know—that it would have been impermissible to fire the U.S. Attorneys for political reasons. Hello?!

Most of the mainstream media then got sucked into the same rhetorical trap, churning out reams of copy about whether it could be proven that Gonzalez acted for (horrors!) political reasons—as if every recent President hadn’t legally done just that. Since Gonzalez was trying to pretend that he hadn’t acted for political reasons, he tried to hide the involvement of Karl Rove in the firings since Rove would have had no legitimate role in firings for cause. Once the claims about Rove began to unravel, Gonzalez switched tactics, and began to argue that he personally hadn’t really been involved in the key decisions about the firings—no matter what the reasons for them might have been.

The more testimony Gonzalez provided, the more he started claiming that, truth to tell, he really wasn’t involved in any major decisions at the Justice Department! Other Justice officials, it seems, made all those decisions. Is this the definition of a figurehead or what? In the latest effort to save his tenure, Gonzalez waited less than twenty-four hours after his top Deputy, Paul McNulty, resigned before leaping in front of the cameras to proclaim that McNulty made all the decisions about these firings.

Even political reasons may be an impermissible basis for firing a U.S. Attorney if it can be proven that the intent of the political intervention was to alter the course of a criminal investigation or prosecution. It may ultimately turn out that some of these firings were intended to do that, and someone may end up as the subject of a criminal prosecution themselves as a result. We needn’t wait around to find out, though, because Gonzalez already has proven decisively that he is not up to his job.

George Bush’s repeated statements of support for Gonzalez, capped off by the absurd claim that Gonzalez’s Congressional testimony made Bush even more confident in Gonzalez than before, illustrates the sorry state to which this Administration has fallen. Yet, this crew is still going to be “running things” around here until 1/20/09. So, what can Arlington Democrats do about any of this?

What we need to do is look for every opportunity further to diminish the power of this President and his Republican party. None of us can fire Alberto Gonzalez, but we can get out there and work to elect more Democrats and defeat more Republicans. Volunteer now to help our Joint Campaign in Arlington in 2007. Help our special 21/51 Committee bring Arlington’s resources to bear in retaking Democratic majorities in the Virginia House and Senate. Write letters to the editor slamming the Bush White House for continuing to tolerate the mess at the Justice Department. Explain how sick you are about this situation to your Republican and Independent friends. Wake up each day and ask yourself: what can I do today to take this crew in Washington down another notch?