Do Republicans Have Any Instinct for Survival? Why Do They Refuse to Fight Against This Idiotic US Attorney Non-Story?
Well, that ought to make this a non-story!
The New York Times is full of editorials today, “Why, why, these e-mails going back and forth, why, they were political calculations!” Yeah, in Washington, DC, a political calculation might have happened in the Bush administration! It happened in Washington, home of politics. Of course this is political! It always has been. It was political when Clinton did it. There was a little self-preservation, too, with Clinton. But some of these US attorneys were not investigating voter fraud in their jurisdictions, and this is one of the reasons why some in the Bush justice department wanted to get rid of them. I guess the best way to really illustrate what's happening here and to give you an idea of the ammo that the Republicans have that they are not using is an editorial today in the Wall Street Journal entitled, "The Hubbell Standard -- Hillary Clinton Knows All About Sacking US Attorneys."
Of course, this is laughable. Mrs. Clinton was on Good Morning America today suggesting that Gonzales needs to resign, that this is just horrible and this is just terrible. Of all people to be saying this and of all people to make herself a target, a juicy target, the presumed Democrat front-runner! The Republicans, especially the Republican presidential candidates, the announced presidential candidates could come out and nail this. She just painted a big target on herself front and back. It's easy to take aim here. Listen to this from the Wall Street Journal editorial today: “As everyone once knew but has tried to forget, Mr. Hubbell was a former partner of Mrs. Clinton at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock who later went to jail for mail fraud and tax evasion. He was also Bill and Hillary Clinton's choice as Associate Attorney General in the Justice Department when Janet Reno, his nominal superior, simultaneously fired all 93 U.S. Attorneys in March 1993.” Everybody thought that Hubbell was running the show. Reno was there as a nominal head, and then later Jamie Gorelick moved in to run the show after Hubbell was sent packing.
Anyway, the justice department under Reno and Hubbell gave those 93 US attorneys “10 days to move out of their offices. At the time, President Clinton presented the move as something perfectly ordinary: 'All those people are routinely replaced,' he told reporters, 'and I have not done anything differently.' In fact, the dismissals were unprecedented: Previous Presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, had both retained holdovers from the previous Administration and only replaced them gradually as their tenures expired. This allowed continuity of leadership within the U.S. Attorney offices during the transition. Equally extraordinary were the politics at play in the firings.
At the time, Jay Stephens, then U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia, was investigating then Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, and was 'within 30 days' of making a decision on an indictment. Mr. Rostenkowski, who was shepherding the Clinton's economic program through Congress, eventually went to jail on mail fraud charges and was later pardoned by Mr. Clinton.” This is audio from my television show on March 24, 1993. Jay Stephens, US attorney in Chicago, said this about his being fired along with the other 92 US attorneys.
STEPHENS: We have expected to make that critical decision within 30 days. We will continue to pursue this investigation. I am confident that it will be pursued by experienced career prosecutors who are conducting this investigation under my leadership. I can only trust that in the tradition of the Department of Justice, the integrity of that investigation will not be blemished by political considerations.
RUSH:
Well, it didn't go forward. Not a whole lot happened there with Jay Stephens being thrown overboard. “Also at the time, allegations concerning some of the Clintons' Whitewater dealings were coming to a head.” By the way, this is the real reason all 93 were fired. Clinton wanted to get rid of the US attorney in Little Rock over Whitewater things, and to make it look like he was not getting rid of one particular US attorney, he just broomed them all. Jay Stephens was handy to get rid of, too, because he was investigating Rosty Rostenkowski. “By dismissing all 93 U.S. Attorneys at once, the Clintons conveniently cleared the decks to appoint 'Friend of Bill' Paula Casey as the U.S. Attorney for Little Rock. Ms. Casey never did bring any big Whitewater indictments, and she rejected information from another FOB, David Hale, on the business practices of the Arkansas elite including Mr. Clinton. When it comes to 'politicizing' Justice, in short, the Bush White House is full of amateurs compared to the Clintons.” Audio sound bite number six is Janet Reno, also from my television show of March 24, 1993. She held a press conference, and this was her announcement.
RENO: I haven't asked for Stephens' resignation. I've asked for the resignation of all the US attorneys as part of an orderly transfer to a new administration so that the new administration can choose its US attorneys, which it thinks is absolutely integral to the Department of Justice and based on what we think the qualifications for US attorneys should be.
RUSH: Yeah, so she was asked, “Are you getting rid of Jay Stephens because of Rostenkowski?” Oh, no, no, no, we’re getting rid of all of them! We're getting rid of every damn one of them. It's part of an orderly transfer to a new administration! So the new administration can choose its attorneys, which it "thinks is absolutely integral." Here is audio sound bite #2. Mrs. Bill Clinton today on Good Morning America, a montage of her remarks about this.
MRS. BILL CLINTON: The attorney general -- who still seems to confuse his prior role as the president's personal attorney with his duty to the system of justice and to the entire country -- should resign. There's evidence of political interference and pressure being put on them to engage in partisan political activities. The president needs to be very forthcoming. What did he say? What did he know? What did he ask people to do?
RUSH: Well, let's take a look at your e-mails. Let's look at your files. Let's look at all of the files in Janet Reno's office back when she got rid of everybody and she admitted it was pretty much about politics. You wanted your own people in there, plus you wanted the Paula Casey in Little Rock and Jay Stephens out in Chicago. That's why I say she has just painted a big bull's-eye on the front and back of her tunic or her muumuu, pantsuit, whatever she's wearing out there today -- and there's nothing from the Republicans! Once again they leave it up to us here in talk radio and in the new media to try to make this case. I guess they're just cowed by the Drive-By Media. They say, “Well, we can't get coverage.” I guarantee you if some senator in Congress had called a press conference today to raise hell about this, they would get coverage. There is no question. Of course you're not going to get coverage if you're on the judiciary committee, one of 12 or 15 people and you're out there raising hell about it because that's not televised. You call a special press conference to talk about this and bring this BS to a halt, and I guarantee that they would get coverage.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, back to the Wall Street Journal editorial today on the Hubbell standard.
“When it comes to 'politicizing' Justice, in short, the Bush White House is full of amateurs compared to the Clintons. And it may be this very amateurism that explains how the current Administration has managed to turn this routine issue of replacing Presidential appointees into a political fiasco. There was nothing wrong with replacing the eight Attorneys, all of whom serve at the President's pleasure.” In fact, here's a montage, ladies and gentlemen. We've got David Gregory; we've got Richard Ben-Veniste; we have the Breck Girl (we have a Breck Girl update coming up today. Ed, the new update theme is the "I am Woman" by the Breck Girl parody. Have that standing by sometime today.)
Also Kelly Arena, CNN; attorney David Boies; Anderson Cooper and Jeffrey Toobin of CNN. This is a little montage. Even the greatest minds in liberalism in the Drive-By Media admit this is a non-story.
GREGORY: Is there any crime? What's Schumer talking about?
BEN-VENISTE: I don't know that there's a crime.
BRECK GIRL: What he did is not illegal.
ARENA: No one is saying that anyone did anything illegal here.
BOIES: I don't think there's anything illegal.
COOPER: It's not illegal.
TOOBIN: Was this illegal? Certainly not. The president has absolute authority to fire people.
RUSH: Well, then what is this? If it's not illegal, then they're trying to make this kind of politics -- Republican, conservative-practiced politics -- a crime.
They're trying to criminalize via scandal. They're saying it's a scandal. It's not illegal. It's a scandal. It gets in the way of justice. It's spoiling the whole system, said Patrick Leahy. “The supposed scandal this week is that Mr. Bush had been informed last fall that some U.S. Attorneys had been less than vigorous in pursuing voter-fraud cases and that the President had made the point to Attorney General Albert Gonzales. Voter fraud strikes at the heart of democratic institutions, and it was entirely appropriate for Mr. Bush -- or any President -- to insist that his appointees act energetically against it. Take sacked U.S. Attorney John McKay from Washington state. In 2004, the Governor's race was decided in favor of Democrat Christine Gregoire by 129-votes on a third recount. As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and other media outlets reported, some of the 'voters' were deceased, others were registered in storage-rental facilities, and still others were convicted felons.
“More than 100 ballots were 'discovered' in a Seattle warehouse. None of this constitutes proof that the election was stolen. But it should have been enough to prompt Mr. McKay, a Democrat, to investigate, something he declined to do, apparently on grounds that he had better things to do. In New Mexico, another state in which recent elections have been decided by razor thin margins, U.S. Attorney David Iglesias did establish a voter fraud task force in 2004. But it lasted all of 10 weeks before closing its doors, despite evidence of irregularities by the likes of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn. As our John Fund reported at the time, Acorn's director Matt Henderson refused to answer questions in court about whether his group had illegally made copies of voter registration cards in the run-up to the 2004 election.
“As for some of the other fired Attorneys, at least one of their dismissals seemed to owe to differences with the Administration about the death penalty, another to questions about the Attorney's managerial skills. Not surprisingly, the dismissed Attorneys are insisting their dismissals were unfair, and perhaps in some cases they were. It would not be the first time in history that a dismissed employee did not take kindly to his firing, nor would it be the first in which an employer sacked the wrong person. No question, the Justice Department and White House have botched the handling of this issue from start to finish. But what we don't have here is any serious evidence that the Administration has acted improperly or to protect some of its friends,” just like we do have with the Clinton administration in 1993. The bottom line is this: “If the Democrats want to understand what a real abuse of power looks like, they can always ask Hillary Clinton,” Mrs. Bill Clinton. She was there.
I've got this Bloomberg story, as we mentioned earlier. Nobody coming to the defense of Gonzales, and that is the problem. You go back to 1993. Janet Reno had every Democrat defending her serial misconduct, her serial incompetence. So here we are, the Wall Street Journal and talk radio defending the administration again while the administration cowers and fires its own people (the chief of staff to Gonzales), and they're essentially out there playing dead on this. The opportunity to nail Hillary, who has called for Gonzales to resign is -- Mrs. Bill Clinton, sorry. Can you imagine, folks, if these US attorneys weren't subject to removal? Let's ask the Democrats. Are you telling us that when you win the presidency next time, you're not going to get rid of any US attorneys, that that would cause a problem in law enforcement? Of course you're not going to promise that.
Can you imagine if these prosecutors were not subject to removal by the president? Apart from the unconstitutional nature of such an effort, hasn't the Patrick Fitzgerald case just demonstrated how dangerous unaccountable prosecutors are? If you ask me, that's a picture-perfect lesson there of precisely why prosecutors are political appointments and why they are not unaccountable. Loyalty to the executive branch's policies were the issue in some cases. What's wrong with that? They’re trying to politicize politics. They're trying to criminalize it or scandalize it in this case, saying that US attorneys' loyalty to the administration is somehow wrong. All you gotta do is go back to 1993. But this is the point. The ongoing effort here is to drive Bush from office. If they can't do that, the second goal is to destroy Republican prospects in '08. The New York Times has a story today about all these e-mails that go back and forth to prove some sort of scandal. What, there weren't any lib e-mails back in 1993? There weren't any lib e-mails?
What about all the lib e-mails going back and forth between Sandy Burglar and whoever else in the Clinton administration about the National Archives theft? Do the Republicans have normal instincts for survival? You don't have to go out and throw yourself on the sword for the Bush administration to defend your party and attack the Democrats. You can do it in an unrelated way. They think they're going to go down and suffer if they lift a finger to assist the administration. That's been the point. The Drive-Bys and the Democrats have been trying to isolate Bush since last November. It's working. He doesn't have any support whatsoever
03-15-2007, 11:08 AM
