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13 Responses to “Impeach Gonzales?”

1. Darvin Dowdy Says:
   July 31st, 2007 at 8:22 am

   Whats killing Gonzales and President Bush right now is the fact that they are getting zero support from their [former] base. And it has nothing to do w/the 8 firings. It has everything to do w/the renegade Texas prosecutor Johnny Sutton and the jailed border agents Ramos and Compean. If the President had the support of his base, then the base would be calling their representitives, fax’ing, emailing and encouraging them to stand tough against the Dem’s in congress over these 8 firings. But there is only silence. Gonzales needs to go. His loyalties are more with Mexico than the U.S. The President has made his own bed. Now he has to lie in it. DD

2. JohnKonop Says:
   July 31st, 2007 at 9:53 am

   Darvin,

   I do agree with that is how he lost the base. Yet from talking to Senator Isakson they think Gonzales step over the line.

3. Mac Says:
   July 31st, 2007 at 11:23 am

   I don’t like Gonzales, but this is clearly another ridiculous effort by the crazies on the left to make a mountain out of a mole hill.

   First they want to impeach Bush and Cheney, now it’s Gonzales, next week it will probably be Abraham Lincoln. Any republican will do. Just don’t say anything bad about “Cold Cash Jefferson.”

   This is simply more stupidty from the “enlightened” leftists. They can’t get any legislation passed, and they can’t put forth any ideas of substance.

   All they want to do is raise taxes, run from Iraq, turn the Nation’s healthcare system into a government entitlement, limit our free speech by imposing the “fairness doctrine,” and pretty much turn us into the United Socialists of America where they’re the ruling dictators.

   They seem to think somebody actually cares if Gonzales goes……here’s a newsflash for you…they don’t.

   Let’s all vote for the Democrats - After all, they’re smarter than the rest of us and are far better equipped to spend our money than we are. Right?

4. bb Says:
   July 31st, 2007 at 12:38 pm

   The only positive aspect of the dem takeover is their collective focus on investigating everything Bush does instead of passing new laws.

   This goes back to your admission right after the election John; “maybe I’m not cut out for politics”, to paraphrase. If Bush throws Alberto under the bus, do you really believe that will satisfy dems…Hell No. They will then focus on somebody else…it is the only thing they know.

   By comparison, does anybody even remember the cover Janet Reno provided to her boss? Amazing how quickly those like you John forget as you wake every day with the singular goal of going after somebody with a R behind their name.

5. JohnKonop Says:
   July 31st, 2007 at 1:18 pm

   Bart

   The justice system means nothing to you?

6. bb Says:
   July 31st, 2007 at 1:28 pm

   The justice system in this country is a joke and has nothing to do with Alberto Gonzalez.

   If/when dems finally get Alberto’s head on a platter, they will immediately set their sites on the next person in line…the justice system will continue to be a joke.

7. Mac Says:
   July 31st, 2007 at 1:34 pm

   John

   The Justice sytem means plenty to me, but nobody can deny this is another with hunt by the dems.

   Wouldn’t it be more productive to make an attempt at solving problems rther than creating them?

   VOTE NO on socialized medicne!

8. Mac Says:
   July 31st, 2007 at 1:34 pm

   Re #7 above - that should be “witch” hunt!

9. JohnKonop Says:
   July 31st, 2007 at 2:21 pm

   Bart & Mac

   You call this a “witch” hunt?

   Gonzales Pressed Ailing Ashcroft on Spy Plan, Aide Says

   On the night of March 10, 2004, a high-ranking Justice Department official rushed to a Washington hospital to prevent two White House aides from taking advantage of the critically ill Attorney General, John Ashcroft, the official testified today.

   One of those aides was Alberto R. Gonzales, who was then White House counsel and eventually succeeded Mr. Ashcroft as Attorney General.

   “I was very upset,” said James B. Comey, who was deputy Attorney General at the time, in his testimony today before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I was angry. I thought 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.”

   The hospital visit by Mr. Gonzales and Andrew H. Card Jr., who was then White House chief of staff, has been disclosed before, but never in such dramatic, personal detail. Mr. Comey’s account offered a rare and titillating glimpse of a Washington power struggle, complete with a late-night showdown in the White House after a dramatic encounter in a darkened hospital room — in short, elements of a potboiler paperback novel.

   Mr. Comey related his story to the committee, which is investigating various aspects of Mr. Gonzales’s tenure as Attorney General, including the recent dismissals of eight United States attorneys and allegations that applicants for traditionally nonpartisan career prosecutor jobs were screened for political loyalties.

   Although Mr. Comey declined to say specifically what the business was that sent Mr. Gonzales to the bedside of Mr. Ashcroft in George Washington University Hospital, where he lay critically ill with pancreatitis, it was clear that the subject was the National Security Agency’s secret domestic surveillance program. The signature of Mr. Ashcroft or his surrogate was needed by the next day, March 11, in order to renew the program, which was still secret at that time.

   Since the existence of the program was disclosed by The New York Times in late 2005, it has been reported that it was the subject of a tense debate at the highest levels of the Bush administration, with some officials concerned that the program was not adequately supervised, and others having more fundamental worries.

   Around the time of the hospital incident, the White House suspended parts of the program for several months and imposed tougher requirements on the National Security Agency on how the program was to be used.Mr. Comey told the committee today that when Mr. Ashcroft was ill and he was in charge at the Justice Department, he told the White House he would not certify the program again “as to its legality.”

   On the night of March 10, as he was being driven home by his security detail, he got a telephone call from Mr. Ashcroft’s chief of staff, who had just been contacted by Mr. Ashcroft’s wife, Janet.

   Although Mrs. Ashcroft had banned visitors and telephone calls to her husband’s hospital room, she had just gotten a call from the White House telling her that Mr. Card and Mr. Gonzales were on their way to see her husband, Mr. Comey testified. “I have some recollection that the call was from the president himself, but I don’t know that for sure,” Mr. Comey said.

   He said his security detail then sped him to the hospital with sirens blaring and emergency lights flashing, while he telephoned the director of the F.B.I., Robert S. Mueller 3d, from the car. Mr. Mueller shared his sense of urgency: “He said, ‘I’ll meet you at the hospital right now,’ ” Mr. Comey testified.

   When he got to the hospital, Mr. Comey recalled, “I got out of the car and ran up — literally, ran up the stairs with my security detail.”

   “What was your concern?” asked Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who was the chairman of today’s committee session.

   “I was concerned that, given how ill I knew the attorney general was, that there might be an effort to ask him to overrule me when he was in no condition to do that,” Mr. Comey replied.

   Mr. Comey recalled arriving at the darkened hospital room, where Mr. Ashcroft seemed hardly aware of his surroundings. For a time, only Mr. Comey and the Ashcrofts were in the room. Meanwhile, Mr. Mueller, who had not yet arrived, told Mr. Comey’s security detail by phone “not to allow me to be removed from the room under any circumstances,” Mr. Comey testified.

   Minutes later, he said, Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card entered the room, with Mr. Gonzales carrying an envelope. “And then Mr. Gonzales began to discuss why they were there, to seek his approval for a matter,” Mr. Comey related.

   “And Attorney General Ashcroft then stunned me,” Mr. Comey went on: He raised his head from the pillow, reiterated his objections to the program, then lay back down, pointing to Mr. Comey as the attorney general during his illness.

   When Mr. Mueller arrived, “he had a brief, a memorable brief exchange with the attorney general, and then we went outside in the hallway,” Mr. Comey said.

   Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card departed, but after a while, Mr. Card telephoned Mr. Comey and “demanded that I come to the White House immediately,” Mr. Comey said.

   “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,” Mr. Comey said he told Mr. Card.

   Whereupon, Mr. Comey said, he contacted the solicitor general, Theodore B. Olson, who was at a dinner party, and arranged to go with him to the White House. At first, Mr. Card would not let Mr. Olson enter his office, Mr. Comey said; he then had a considerably calmer private chat with Mr. Card for a quarter-hour, after which Mr. Olson entered the room and took part in the conversation.

   “Mr. Card was concerned that he had heard reports that there were to be a large number of resignations at the Department of Justice,” Mr. Comey recalled.

   Mr. Ashcroft had such serious reservations about the program that he considered resigning then, Mr. Comey testified. Instead, he stayed on until November 2004.

   Mr. Mueller, too, considered resigning, Mr. Comey said.

   “You had conversations with him about it?” Mr. Schumer asked.

   “Yes,” Mr. Comey replied.The surveillance program was reauthorized on March 11, 2004, without a signature from the Department of Justice “attesting to its legality,” Mr. Comey testified.

   Mr. Comey said today that he intended to resign the next day, March 12. But terrorists carried out deadly train bombings in Madrid on March 11, prompting him to put his plans on hold; he remained on the job until August 2005.

   Even before Mr. Comey’s testimony, Mr. Schumer and Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the panel’s ranking Republican, reiterated their low opinion of Mr. Gonzales as attorney general.

   “He’s presided over a Justice Department where being a, quote, loyal Bushie seems to be more important than being a seasoned professional, where what the White House wants is more important than what the law requires or what prudence dictates,” Mr. Schumer said.

   “It is the decision of Mr. Gonzales as to whether he stays or goes, but it is hard to see how the Department of Justice can function and perform its important duties with Mr. Gonzales remaining where he is,” Mr Specter said. “And beyond Mr. Gonzales’ decision, it’s a matter for the president as to whether the president will retain the attorney general or not.”

10. David O'Rear Says:
    July 31st, 2007 at 7:58 pm

    Sorry, but Alberto Gonzales is going to have to get in line.

    Dubious, Chain-gun and The Dark Lord are facing the guillotine first . . .

    That’s where bb’s wrong: we know what are priorities are, and the AG is strictly second tier.

    Mr Gonzales is just practice, just a little warm-up exercise.

    .

11. Hugh Says:
    July 31st, 2007 at 8:01 pm

    John,
    In a way, I feel sorry for bb and SgtMac. Somehow they have to spin and spin their yarns. They can’t possibly make solid arguments out of lies. John, we have it relatively easy as we have the TRUTH on our side. But I use the word “relatively easy”, as the Neo-Cons, the establishment, the elites, have control of the media and all major institutions in our nation. It will not be easy to beat the b-s-a-ds. They are very entrenched.

12. Bill Says:
    August 1st, 2007 at 5:01 am

    Hugh
    That’s why we have to think “outside the box”, for example I’m normally an anti-communist, but of course the more immediate danger is the necons!! This is why I laughed at what happened to Verizon in Venezuela!
    http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/venezuela-moves-seize-us-owned-telecom/story.aspx?guid=%7B622436F5-1A6C-4FAF-9F77-B755FF793437%7D
    “Verizon’s argument is that passing customer data on to the government without a warrant is a first amendment right.”
    http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Spying-On-You-a-First-Amendment-Right-83619

13. David O'Rear Says:
    August 1st, 2007 at 8:10 pm

    “Thinking outside the [ballot] box” is a Republican’t shortcoming.

    How about “thinking outside the coffin” ?