The Injustice of a U.S. Attorney General Who Cannot Tell The Truth, Any Truth

Former Bush Administration U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, a man with no qualifications for the job but his prissy self-righteousness (something the Bushies prefer to actual good, honest, and competent people, quite obviously) seems so atrocious for his title that it was hard to imagine a worse human being to lead the Justice Department. Yet, somehow, Bush found worse to replace Ashcroft: his buddy, a man who has never tried or prosecuted a single case as lawyer, the disgraceful, imcompetent, and perjuring Alberto Gonzales.

Responding to Congressional testimony yesterday by a former senior aide, Gonzales met the statements with yet more perjurous lies to Congress today regarding the Karl Rove-Bush Administration purging of federal prosecutors who would not act solely as partisan water carriers for the Bush-led GOP.

Today, there is this Times editorial on the matter of Kyle Sampson's testimony:

It is no wonder that the White House is trying to stop Congress from questioning Mr. Rove, Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, and other top officials in public, under oath and with a transcript. The more the administration tries to spin the prosecutor purge, the worse it looks.

E.J. Dionne: An AntiWar Tide On The Rise

Damn tooting, it's on the rise. And among people who have never protested anything before, let alone an entire (Bush) Administration and a war. We're talking red staters as well as blue, old as well as young, Republicans and Indies as much as Democrats.

But here's what Dionne writes (read the rest here):

Within three weeks, the United States could face a constitutional crisis over President Bush's war policy in Iraq. The president and his allies seem to want this fight. Yet insisting upon a confrontation will be another mistake in a long line of bad judgments about a conflict that grows more unpopular by the day.

Last week's narrow House vote imposing an August 2008 deadline for the withdrawal of American troops was hugely significant, even if the bill stands no chance of passing in the Senate this week in its current form. The vote was a test of the resolve of the new House Democratic leadership and its ability to pull together an ideologically diverse membership behind a plan pointing the United States out of Iraq.

To understand the importance of the vote, one need only consider what would have been said had it gone the other way: A defeat would have signaled House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's powerlessness to create a governing majority from a fragmented Democratic membership. In a do-or-die vote, Pelosi lived to fight another day by creating a consensus in favor of withdrawal that included some of her party's most liberal and most conservative members.

The vote is only the first of what will be many difficult roll calls potentially pitting Congress against the president on the conduct of war policy. It confirmed that power in Washington has indeed shifted. Bush and his Republican congressional allies had hoped Democrats would splinter and open the way for a pro-Bush resolution of the Iraq issue. Instead, antiwar Democrats, including Web-based groups such as MoveOn.org, discovered a common interest with their moderate colleagues.

Oddly, the president's harsh rhetoric against the House version of the supplemental appropriations bill to finance the Iraq war may have been decisive in sealing Pelosi's victory. "The vehemence with which the president opposed it made it clear to a lot of people that this was a change in direction and that it was significant," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Tom Matzzie, the Washington director of MoveOn, saw the Bush effect rallying his own antiwar membership. "Bush is our worst enemy," Matzzie said, "and our best ally."

New Head of CentCom: No Civil War in Iraq

If the rest of this man's information is as wildly flawed as his understanding of what goes on in Iraq, we shouldn't only ask what the new CentCom commander has been smoking. No, we need to truly, truly be concerned about where the military is headed if they only rubber stamp and say yes to whatever Bush tells them to say. From CNN:

Iraq isn't engulfed in a civil war, and there are signs of hope outside strife-torn Baghdad, the new leader of U.S. Central Command says.

But the country needs "more pervasive security" -- as well as a more efficient and responsive government -- before the United States starts withdrawing troops, says Adm. William J. Fallon, whose command is based at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, and covers the Middle East, central Asia and eastern Africa.

Fallon, interviewed by CNN's Kyra Phillips, stresses that security in Iraq is clearly the biggest challenge for the nascent government and the U.S.-led coalition.

Fallon says there can be no Iraqi confidence in the new governmental system without strides in keeping the peace. If law and order can't be implemented, he says, "we're not going to be able to get there."

Matt Drudge And New Online Politico Joined At The Hip

Have you heard much about the new online political "magazine" called Politico? I first saw the links for it several weeks ago; only after that did I begin to read and hear lots of mumbling about Politico being less than fair to those not of the red power tie persuasion (I'm still divided myself; I do think I see more Republican bias though I have seen them mock GOPers, too).

But here's what Glenn Greenwald writes today of Matt Drudge and Politico being joined at the hip (that's GOT to hurt):

The new online political magazine, The Politico, is a pernicious new presence in our media landscape. As I noted the other day, it really is nothing more than the Drudge Report dressed up with the trappings of mainstream media credibility. Today, Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News writes on his blog about what is merely the latest episode (of many) proving how closely coordinated The Politico is with The Drudge Report. It is not hyperbole to say that the former is all but an arm of the latter.

Last night, The Politico's Mike Allen published a petty, trite hit piece on Barack Obama -- entitled Rookie Mistakes Plague Obama -- claiming that Obama "has also shown a tendency toward seemingly minor contradictions and rhetorical slips" and referencing "imprecise or incomplete statements by Obama over the years." As Bunch noticed, Allen's story was "highlighted on the Drudge Report no later than 18 minutes after it was filed by Allen (how does he do it!)." Drudge continues prominently to promote The Politico's story today:

As I noted earlier this week, The Politico has instantaneously become one of the most-linked sites (I would guess the single most-linked) on The Drudge Report. Drudge links produce a volume of traffic unlike any other. Central to the business and political plan of The Politico is, quite transparently, overt courting of Matt Drudge and active cooperation with him.

When we last saw Mike Allen, he was falling all over himself in praise of Drudge on Drudge's radio show. Immediately thereafter, Allen published a story with Drudge-like inaccuracy claiming that "it is now a virtual certainty that Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty . . . will also resign shortly" and that Gonzales' resignation would either occur at the same time or a day before -- a story which The Politico changed the following day (once Bush made clear that Gonzales would not resign) to conceal Allen's inaccuracies without indicating in any way that the story had been changed.

Allen, who was Time's White House correspondent before joining The Politico, has a relationship with the White House and with George Bush so affable that the President actually went out of his way at a recent Press Conference deliberately to plug The Politico while exchanging in giggly chatter with Allen...

The rest is here.

Senate Passes Its Own Iraq Bill Complete With Timetable to Remove U.S. Troops

And, of course, the President (always in the mood for a tantrum) insists he will veto both this bill and the one passed by the House.

God forbid Bush pay a nanosecond's attention to the will of the people of the United States, the same people he is supposed to work for.

Tony Snow: Cancer Spread to Liver

News outlets report that White House spokesman Tony Snow, who had a bout with cancer a few years ago, now has the cancer spread from his liver to his colon.

While I can't pretend to like or respect the man, I do wish him and his family the best in what will no doubt be an extremely difficult time for them all.

"Bush's Monica Problem"

Ironic, no, that another Monica has cropped up with another president; the so-called "adult" president who claimed he would bring back the moral rectitude of the White House after the Clinton years. Ah, but this is no blowjob between consenting adults now, is it?

Before I quote from Dan Froomkin's column today on this Monica, let me note that I've heard from a LOT of people in the last 24 hours since the announcement that Al Gonzales' liaison to the White House from the Department of (In)Justice would plead the 5th; all say that this for them means this Justice Dept and White House are dirty as hell. And let me add that most of these same folks were hardly convinced before that the purging of the U.S. Attorneys/federal prosecutors fell into a gray area for them, where they were not certain actual wrong had been done.

Now to Froomkin:

Will another presidency be tripped up by another Monica?

As suspicions about the White House role in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year continue to deepen, one of the people who could shed light on what happened -- Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's White House liaison -- has suddenly decided to clam up, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Juries in criminal cases are sternly lectured not to assume guilt when a defendant takes the Fifth. It is, after all, a Constitutional right.

But when a fairly minor player in what had heretofore not been considered a criminal investigation suddenly admits that she faces legal jeopardy if she tells the truth to a Congressional panel? Well, in that case, wild speculation is an inevitable and appropriate reaction.

For one, it's not at all clear what she's trying to say. Undeniably, if she chose to lie to the panel, she could face perjury charges. Her recourse, therefore, would appear to be to tell the truth.

So is she saying that if she told the truth, she would have to admit a crime? What crime?

Or is she saying something else: That she'd have to admit someone else's criminal behavior? Well, that's not something you can take the Fifth to avoid. Sorry.

Or is she just afraid of being grilled by an antagonistic bunch of congressmen? Well, that's not something you can take the Fifth to avoid either.

In my column yesterday, I wrote that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is almost certainly still getting his marching orders directly from the West Wing. I speculated about which Justice and/or White House aides were charged with delivering those orders. It's widely known that the White House has in many cases turned over the micromanagement of Cabinet officials to untested youngsters whose paramount qualification is that they follow orders.

Bush Boy may be going dow-dow-down-downnnnnn on this.

"Who's Scripting Gonzales?"

Dan Froomkin asks this question and it's an apt one when you look back at two or more of his "public appearances" where the U.S. Attorney General appears to be a man of limited intellect and seems to work at coming off rather slavish to the president.

Each time he appears, in fact, he seems less and less capable, which leads people to wonder who else engineered the purging of the federal prosecutors from the Attorney General's office, since good ole Al doesn't seem capable of much subterfuge.

Why did Attorney General Alberto Gonzales go before the television cameras two weeks ago and deny that he knew anything about last year's firings of U.S. attorneys, when -- as we just learned from yet another Friday-night document dump -- he approved them during an hour-long meeting in November?

Did that meeting not make an impression? Did he choose to lie about it? Was he secretly drawing a distinction between giving his approval and knowing anything about what he had given his approval for?

Or was he just reading whatever was put in front of him?

It's no secret in Washington that Gonzales is not an autonomous player. His entire career has been as an enabler of George Bush. He does what he's told.

When he was White House counsel, for instance, he was widely seen as being under the thrall of vice presidential counsel David S. Addington on such signature issues as torture and presidential power.

It's not as obvious who has been his minder since he became attorney general two years ago. But presumably either he or, more to the point, the staffers who write his speeches and draw up his talking points still get their marching orders directly from the West Wing.

Vets: Expect Thousands More Pet Deaths From Tainted Food

[Ed. Note: OK, I'm not entirely nuts. Other people actually cook meals for their pets as well to supplement his raw meat and some packaged food diet. And whenever you give meat to your pets - or yourself - you MUST know where it's coming from along with who raises it. I would never serve raw Perdue or Tyson chicken, for example, to my dog. Likewise, the red meat is invariably is purchased from one of the local farmers who don't do bovine growth hormone, antibiotics, or anything like that. I'm also making some of my own dog biscuits these days.]

For more than a week now, the mainstream media - when they bothered to report on the story of tainted dog and cat food at al - kept tossing out the same low number of under a dozen dead pets in what now appears to be a case of rat poison contaminating other products in such food. The media also continued to cite about 45 labels long past the time when the number of affected products had grown to 100 or more. [Consult this list to see if a product you bought to feed your cat or dog is listed.]

Now vets say to expect at the minimum thousands more pet deaths.

McCain Declares Democrats Don't Care About Troops

[Ed. note: Also noteworthy: McCain claims that - despite all his constantly contradictory statements on almost everything - he has NOT changed. Also, more Americans than ever before disapprove (sounds a little light considering what is said) of the Iraq war and the Bushies' handling of it. See *** below.]

See the story here.

Well, let's see, would I rather be a Democrat seeking to bring the troops home now from a war we were lied into, or would I like to be John McCain who, in light of the lies going into and the failures once we got into Iraq, is willing to risk tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers and even more Iraqi civilians JUST to give McCain a boost in the poll numbers.

As I indicated, I can no longer go along with the ridiculous rhetoric about calling McCain a "war hero" just because he was taken prisoner. A true hero would NOT demand more troops lose their lives JUST for his political ambitions. And the Bushies will never let McCain be president anyway.

***Re: Iraq war disapproval:

A record number of Americans disapprove of the war in Iraq, and a clear majority now favors the eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces, even if civil order has not been restored there — potentially a tipping point in public attitudes on the war.

While solutions remain vexing, for the first time ABC News/Washington Post polls show a narrow majority of Americans support setting a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Two-thirds oppose George W. Bush's troop surge; most oppose it strongly.

It all makes for a continued hard slog for the president: Just 36 percent approve of his job performance overall, very near his career low of 33 percent last month. Bush hasn't seen majority approval in more than two years — the longest run without majority support for any president since Harry Truman from 1950-53.

While rooted in Iraq, Bush's problems with credibility and confidence reach beyond it. Sixty-three percent of Americans don't trust the administration to convey intelligence reports on potential threats from other countries honestly and accurately. And 58 percent lack confidence, specifically, in its ability to handle current tensions with Iran.

Bolton, Bush, And The Middle East Meltdown

Worthy of note from Buck at Pensito Review:

Lest we forget: The Bush administration’s hard-on for Israel has a name: John Bolton. The former U.S. envoy to the United Nations has spilled the beans to the BBC in an interview where he pretty much says that U.S. interests were best served by Israel dropping shitloads of cluster bombs on Lebanon during last summer’s dust-up.

Please either read the whole thing or at least drop down to the end where it gets into the disparate casualties on the Lebanese side versus the Israeli side, keeping in mind that whole thing was supposedly over a couple of Israeli soldiers who were kidnapped.

Mr. Bolton, a controversial and blunt-speaking figure, said he was ‘damned proud of what we did’ to prevent an early ceasefire.(Emphasis added)

Former ambassador to the UN John Bolton told the BBC that before any ceasefire Washington wanted Israel to eliminate Hezbollah’s military capability.

Mr Bolton said an early ceasefire would have been “dangerous and misguided”.
He said the US decided to join efforts to end the conflict only when it was clear Israel’s campaign wasn’t working.

Israel was reacting in its own self-defence and if that meant the defeat of the enemy, that was perfectly legitimate under international law. The former envoy, who stepped down in December 2006, was interviewed for a BBC radio documentary, The Summer War in Lebanon, to be broadcast in April.

Mr Bolton said the US was deeply disappointed at Israel’s failure to remove the threat from Hezbollah and the subsequent lack of any attempt to disarm its forces.

Britain joined the US in refusing to call for an immediate ceasefire.The war began when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers, but it quickly escalated into a full-scale conflict.
BBC diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall says the US-UK refusal to join calls for a ceasefire was one of the most controversial aspects of the diplomacy.

British, US and Israeli ambassadors at the UN, August 2006
The UK, US and Israeli were alone in resisting an early ceasefireAt the time US officials argued a ceasefire was insufficient and agreement was needed to address the underlying tensions and balance of power in the region.

Mr Bolton now describes it as “perfectly legitimate… and good politics” for the Israelis to seek to defeat their enemy militarily, especially as Hezbollah had attacked Israel first and it was acting “in its own self-defence”.

Keep reading here.

Breaking News!!! Anna Nicole Smith Is Still Dead!

Yes, indeedy. It's true.

With any luck, she'll remain dead (and let's not forget, her IQ jumped all the way up to double digits once she was dead).

Also Say Hello to...

FCC FU - as in the Federal Communications Commission.

Their version of the national anthem is, by itself, reason to visit! But they also feature one of my dozen favorite quotes from the U.S. Supreme Court justices:

“Restriction on free thought and free speechis the most dangerous of all subversions. It is theone un-American act that could most easily defeat us.”

William O. Douglas, U.S. Supreme Court Justice 1939-1975

Say Hello to...

We Don't Agree But... blog at Learning Fountain.

Poisoned Pet Food: Time To Sue?

I am not a big believer in law suits and "personal injury" cases, but after spending more than a week now following my poor dog around to be sure he pees, and finding more and more foods added to the pet food recall list, I just might join in this case ("Putting a Price on Puppy Love"):

Millions of Americans treat their pets as family. Now a growing number of pet owners are taking that love to an entirely different, more litigious level.

Reports of pets killed or injured by toxic pet food are on the rise and so are the stakes for animal owners and pet-food makers.

Related: Find Out if Your Pet's Food Is on the List

The pet-food recall initiated during the weekend by Menu Foods of Canada — covering more than 100 brands — comes on the heels of food poisonings last year that killed 75 dogs.

In January 2006, Diamond Pet Foods recalled about 20 brands after pets died from a toxic fungus, aflatoxin, in the food. The cause of the latest sicknesses from Menu products are still under investigation but may be tied to tainted wheat gluten in the food.

S&M NuTec, the makers of Greenies dog chews, is the subject of a $5 million suit brought by New Yorkers Michael Eastwood and Jennifer Reiff. They allege that the green chewy treats killed their 4-year-old miniature dachshund in 2005 because the material went undigested in the animal's intestine.

American Majority Supports Timetable for U.S. Troop Withdrawal From Iraq

While the White House and the media piss and moan that real Americans disapprove of the Congressional Dems' push to get American troops out of Iraq, this is NOT supported by the findings of a new poll

From Talking Points Memo:

A new poll finds that nearly six in 10 back the House Dem bill mandating withdrawal from Iraq by Fall 2008.

Yet somehow, your media commentators keep reflexively recycling the bogus claim that Congressional Dems are offering voters nothing.

Not cool, Zeus.

The Problem With Having Those At Fault Conduct The Investigation

In the death by "friendly fire" (a fact kept from the family for some time) of sports hero Pat Tillman, the Department of Defense has conducted a careful investigation of itself and declared itself not guilty (though they did recommend hand slaps for nine Army officers involved).

This is the problem with ANY entity investigating itself. It can be hard to find a fair and impartial judge at any time, but it gets a LOT tougher when you evaluate yourself.

What say you?

Are There Any Honorable Types Serving Under George W. Bush?

I ask this because, not only among the crooks and liars like Alberto Gonzales we see and hear about everyday, we notice that some of the lower level Bushies are in deep doo-doo, too. For example. the head of the Smithsonian Institute has been forced to resign for some very questionable spending.

Paul Krugman: "Emerging Republican Minority"

Here's the latest (this morning) New York Times' Op/Ed column by the one, the only, Paul Krugman:

Remember how the 2004 election was supposed to have demonstrated, once and for all, that conservatism was the future of American politics? I do: early in 2005, some colleagues in the news media urged me, in effect, to give up. “The election settled some things,” I was told.

But at this point 2004 looks like an aberration, an election won with fear-and-smear tactics that have passed their sell-by date. Republicans no longer have a perceived edge over Democrats on national security — and without that edge, they stand revealed as ideologues out of step with an increasingly liberal American public.

Right now the talk of the political chattering classes is a report from the Pew Research Center showing a precipitous decline in Republican support. In 2002 equal numbers of Americans identified themselves as Republicans and Democrats, but since then the Democrats have opened up a 15-point advantage.

Part of the Republican collapse surely reflects public disgust with the Bush administration. The gap between the parties will probably get even wider when — not if — more and worse tales of corruption and abuse of power emerge.

But polling data on the issues, from Pew and elsewhere, suggest that the G.O.P.’s problems lie as much with its ideology as with one man’s disastrous reign.

For the conservatives who run today’s Republican Party are devoted, above all, to the proposition that government is always the problem, never the solution. For a while the American people seemed to agree; but lately they’ve concluded that sometimes government is the solution, after all, and they’d like to see more of it.

Consider, for example, the question of whether the government should provide fewer services in order to cut spending, or provide more services even if this requires higher spending. According to the American National Election Studies, in 1994, the year the Republicans began their 12-year control of Congress, those who favored smaller government had the edge, by 36 to 27. By 2004, however, those in favor of bigger government had a 43-to-20 lead.

And public opinion seems to have taken a particularly strong turn in favor of universal health care. Gallup reports that 69 percent of the public believes that “it is the responsibility of the federal government to make sure all Americans have health care coverage,” up from 59 percent in 2000.

The main force driving this shift to the left is probably rising income inequality. According to Pew, there has recently been a sharp increase in the percentage of Americans who agree with the statement that “the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.” Interestingly, the big increase in disgruntlement over rising inequality has come among the relatively well off — those making more than $75,000 a year.

Indeed, even the relatively well off have good reason to feel left behind in today’s economy, because the big income gains have been going to a tiny, super-rich minority. It’s not surprising, under those circumstances, that most people favor a stronger safety net — which they might need — even at the expense of higher taxes, much of which could be paid by the ever-richer elite.

And in the case of health care, there’s also the fact that the traditional system of employer-based coverage is gradually disintegrating. It’s no wonder, then, that a bit of socialized medicine is looking good to most Americans.

So what does this say about the political outlook? It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. But at this point it looks as if we’re seeing an emerging Republican minority.

Read the rest here.

Gonzales: Will Plead The Fifth, Won't Answer Senate's Questions

[Update: News services have amended this report, stating that a key aide to Gonzales, rather than Gonzales himself, will invoke the Fifth Amendment.]

The wire services just reported that U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and will refuse to answer the Senate's questions when (it's expected) he's called before the Judiciary Committee to explain his culpability in what is known as GonzalesGate or AttorneyGate, the purging of federal prosecutors who would not tow the Bush-GOP line in exclusively going after Democrats while abandoning any and all investigations targeting Republicans.

I think this is a big deal. If Gonzales cannot testify without invoking the 5th amendment, it's clear he knows he has committed a grievous wrong. If he won't be held accountable to our elected representatives, then Gonzales must be terminated at the very least.

Confession Is Good For The (Bush) Hole?

Another absolutely right-on Jeff Danziger cartoon, this one (from March 16th) on the strange "confessions" by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who admitted to being a 9/11 mastermind, the Madrid train bombings, stealing candy from a baby, and making Michael Jackson become a sexual pervert (just to name an unlikely few). Mohammed, as you may recall, is one of our "poster children" for torture, with Rumsfeld and Cheney coming out saying that "waterboarding" is good (as opposed to the experts, who agree that torture-based admissions aren't worth the paper they're written on).

Frank Rich: "When Will Fredo Get Whacked?"

[Editor: Psssssst! Does this make Barbara Bush into Biggest Pussy?]

Personally, I'm not sure anyone in the Bush Administration is smart enough to be a member of organized crime (although they certainly commit far more than just white collar crime in groups of two or more)... and think of Alberto Gonzales sleepin' with da fishies.

Here's Sunday, March 25's Frank Rich extravaganza:

--The New York Times, March 25, 2007

President Bush wants to keep everything that happens in his White House secret, but when it comes to his own emotions, he’s as transparent as a teenager on MySpace.

On Monday morning he observed the Iraq war’s fourth anniversary with a sullen stay-the-course peroration so perfunctory he seemed to sleepwalk through its smorgasbord of recycled half-truths (Iraqi leaders are “beginning to meet the benchmarks”) and boilerplate (“There will be good days, and there will be bad days”). But at a press conference the next day to defend his attorney general, the president was back in the saddle, guns blazing, Mr. Bring ’Em On reborn. He vowed to vanquish his Democratic antagonists much as he once, so very long ago, pledged to make short work of insurgents in Iraq.

The Jekyll-and-Hyde contrast between these two performances couldn’t be a more dramatic indicator of Mr. Bush’s priorities in his presidency’s endgame. His passion for protecting his power and his courtiers far exceeds his passion for protecting the troops he’s pouring into Iraq’s civil war. But why go to the mat for Alberto Gonzales? Even Bush loyalists have rarely shown respect for this crony whom the president saddled with the nickname Fredo; they revolted when Mr. Bush flirted with appointing him to the Supreme Court and shun him now. The attorney general’s alleged infraction — misrepresenting a Justice Department purge of eight United States attorneys, all political appointees, for political reasons — seems an easy-to-settle kerfuffle next to his infamous 2002 memo dismissing the Geneva Conventions’ strictures on torture as “quaint” and “obsolete.”

That’s why the president’s wild overreaction is revealing. So far his truculence has been largely attributed to his slavish loyalty to his White House supplicants, his ideological belief in unilateral executive-branch power and, as always, his need to shield the Machiavellian machinations of Karl Rove (who installed a protégé in place of one of the fired attorneys). But the fierceness of Mr. Bush’s response — to the ludicrous extreme of forbidding transcripts of Congressional questioning of White House personnel — indicates there is far more fire to go with all the Beltway smoke.

Read the rest at Rozius Unbound.

[Extra Psssssst: I hate the Godfather.]

High Energy Prices Giving You Gas?

In just under a week, gas prices have gone up on average of six (6) cents per gallon. This brings the national average per gallon to $2.61, considerably lower than what my home state and many others are seeing.

In fact, look at the gas price graphic on my right hand sidebar, and you'll see that most of the blue states pay far more, on average, than their red state brethren.

Funny how that works.

While pundits were predicting around the middle of last week that it was "unlikely" we would see $3+/gallon by summer, California passed that benchmark a few weeks ago. Where I live in Vermont, it's tough to see anything less than $2.60.

Conservative Or Not, It's Hard To Be Compassionate For Alberto Gonzales

Last week, with more and more people calling for U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales - a man who has never worked FOR anyone BUT George W. Bush (and certainly, despite that we pay him, he absolutley DOES NOT work on behalf of the American people as he should) - Bush got outright nasty with anyone who might question Gonzales and the White House officials behind the purging of at least eight federal prosecutors known as AttorneyGate or GonzalesGate.

At the same time, the doesn't-seem-too-bright Gonzales first insisted he was "staying to protect the children" (what children?) and then, using our tax dollars, went off on a public relations whirlwind tour of the country trying to find supporters who did not want him to be Going-Going-Going-Gone-zales. Apparently, he's been having a harder time finding people who want him to stay on the job.

For example, Steve posting at one of my fave blogs, The Carpetbagger Report, notes that conservative bloggers have largely given up on Bush's "token Hispanic".

If you happened to catch "Saturday Night Live" Saturday night, you saw an all-too-realistic skit with Bush and Gonzales (played, I believe, by Jason Sudeikis and Fred Armisen, respectively), where Bush kept saying, "If I found any truth to what's being said about Al, I'd fire Gonzales myself" with Gonzales disappearing from the president's side every time his guilt cropped up.

While I do believe Gonzales can and should resign, I think it is more appropriate for him to be dismissed and then a thorough investigation of him, Bush, Cheney, and the others commended. I still say Treason charges are more appropriate than impeachment.