Gonzo resigns

Comments

  • macgyver06macgyver06 Posts: 2,500
    its about time...this guy is a bum! i hope someone kidnaps him and holds him without trial.
  • FinsburyParkCarrotsFinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Maybe he'll get a bit part in the remake of Fantasy Island, now.
  • I just caught the AP story on Yahoo now... Good news to say the least.

    For as good politically as this administration has been, I can't figure out their timing on things at all. Waiting until after the midterms to can Rumsfeld, and even this, if he would have been fired during the height of all of the issues with him, it wouldn't have added much to the fervor, but doing it now (on a Monday to boot), it just creates a couple of more days of bad news coverage.

    Their stubbornness gets the best of them I guess...
    My whole life
    was like a picture
    of a sunny day
    “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
    ― Abraham Lincoln
  • inmyrvminmyrvm Posts: 933
    good riddance
    "Fuck the talkin' let's start rockin" - Eddie Vedder 9-5-00 Pittsburgh
    4/26/03 Pittsburgh 5/3/03 State College 7/12/03 Hershey 10/1/04 Reading 9/28/05 Pittsburgh 5/20/06 Cleveland 6/23/06 Pittsburgh 6/22/08 DC

    friends don't let friends listen to good charlotte
  • soulsingingsoulsinging Posts: 13,202
    like rats deserting a sinking ship.
  • ledveddermanledvedderman Posts: 7,761
    I just caught the AP story on Yahoo now... Good news to say the least.

    For as good politically as this administration has been, I can't figure out their timing on things at all. Waiting until after the midterms to can Rumsfeld, and even this, if he would have been fired during the height of all of the issues with him, it wouldn't have added much to the fervor, but doing it now (on a Monday to boot), it just creates a couple of more days of bad news coverage.

    Their stubbornness gets the best of them I guess...

    I think the timing of this is actually well timed. Our fellow message boarder, leatherman_8, works for a DC insider and they all started a 2 week vacation last week. In his words, DC is a "ghost town" right now. Good time to make a announcement like this I would think.
  • RushlimboRushlimbo Posts: 832
    His mission was accomplished.
    War is Peace
    Freedom is Slavery
    Ignorance is Strength
  • g under pg under p Surfing The far side of THE Sombrero Galaxy Posts: 18,200
    Same As It Ever Was...his replacement will be no different. Their press secretary said must be in before Labor Day. First Rove now you know who.

    Peace
    *We CAN bomb the World to pieces, but we CAN'T bomb it into PEACE*...Michael Franti

    *MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
    .....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti

    *The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)


  • I think the timing of this is actually well timed. Our fellow message boarder, leatherman_8, works for a DC insider and they all started a 2 week vacation last week. In his words, DC is a "ghost town" right now. Good time to make a announcement like this I would think.

    I guess from an in the beltway perspective it makes sense, but from a media/message control perspective I think that all it does is add a couple of more days of bad news on this administration that it didn't have to go through.

    In the end though, it doesn't matter, because these people seem to easily disregard anything that the public or media says anyway.

    I am very curious of who they will nominate next and put through the confirmation hearings.
    My whole life
    was like a picture
    of a sunny day
    “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
    ― Abraham Lincoln
  • Pacomc79Pacomc79 Posts: 9,404
    This is kind of sad.... the muppets just won't be the same...
    My Girlfriend said to me..."How many guitars do you need?" and I replied...."How many pairs of shoes do you need?" She got really quiet.
  • gue_bariumgue_barium Posts: 5,515
    Who's going to protect the American children?

    all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
    except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
  • FlaggFlagg Posts: 5,856
    Ed's going to have to revise the lyrics to Here's to the State of George W again.
    DAL-7/5/98,10/17/00,6/9/03,11/15/13
    BOS-9/28/04,9/29/04,6/28/08,6/30/08, 9/5/16, 9/7/16, 9/2/18
    MTL-9/15/05, OTT-9/16/05
    PHL-5/27/06,5/28/06,10/30/09,10/31/09
    CHI-8/2/07,8/5/07,8/23/09,8/24/09
    HTFD-6/27/08
    ATX-10/4/09, 10/12/14
    KC-5/3/2010,STL-5/4/2010
    Bridge School-10/23/2010,10/24/2010
    PJ20-9/3/2011,9/4/2011
    OKC-11/16/13
    SEA-12/6/13
    TUL-10/8/14
  • beachdwellerbeachdweller Posts: 1,532
    we all know this has nothing to do with wrong doing....NOT


    now getting his replacement through the Senate will be interesting.
    "Music, for me, was fucking heroin." eV (nothing Ed has said is more true for me personally than this quote)

    Stop by:
    http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=14678777351&ref=mf
  • sweetpotatosweetpotato Posts: 1,278
    it's a good thing i bought extra batteries.

    http://forums.pearljam.com/showthread.php?p=4700187#post4700187
    "Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States, Barack Obama."

    "Obama's main opponent in this election on November 4th (was) not John McCain, it (was) ignorance."~Michael Moore

    "i'm feeling kinda righteous right now. with my badass motherfuckin' ukulele!"
    ~ed, 8/7
  • puremagicpuremagic Posts: 1,907
    Not soon enough, the damage perpetrated against the Constitution and the judicial system as a whole will out live him. The effects of his ineptness as the U.S. Attorney General and its national impact will be felt in court rulings long after the entire Bush Administration fades into the history books.
    SIN EATERS--We take the moral excrement we find in this equation and we bury it down deep inside of us so that the rest of our case can stay pure. That is the job. We are morally indefensible and absolutely necessary.
  • JamMastaEJamMastaE Posts: 444
    resign,shit...he should be hung for treason with the rest of this administration.
    "In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot". Mark Twain


    "I would rather die on my feet than to live on my knees."
    Emiliano Zapata
  • gimmesometruth27gimmesometruth27 St. Fuckin Louis Posts: 23,304
    i think the timing of announcing this is perfect. look at the news today. 1. mike vick pleads guilty, 2. owen wilson in hospital with possible suicide attempt, 3. most controversial figure in recent history to head the justice department resigns.....they announced this today knowing that the vick plea deal was going to get the majority of mainstream coverage and with hopes that old alberto could just quietly fade away.

    the vick issue evokes the most passion out of the general public so its gonna get more coverage. people are concerned about owen wilson because they like him so this will get some mainstream coverage. but politics is such a downer for the public now so the media is not going to hammer the public with gonzo news, even though its one of the most important political events of the year.
    "You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry."  - Lincoln

    "Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
  • sweetpotatosweetpotato Posts: 1,278
    In the End, Realities Trumped Loyalty

    By Dan Balz and Michael Abramowitz
    Washington Post Staff Writers
    Tuesday, August 28, 2007; A01



    Few attributes are more highly prized in President Bush's White House than loyalty -- and few have exacted a higher toll on the president and his political standing. Yesterday's resignation announcement by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales underscored once again the damage that can be done when loyalty becomes paramount in presidential decision-making.

    Rarely has a Cabinet-level resignation been so anticipated, coming long after Gonzales's credibility had been irreparably undermined by controversy. After he seemingly could do no more harm to the administration, Bush's friend and longtime confidant finally called it quits.

    Yet the resignation was almost as surprising as it was long expected. Bush repeatedly expressed confidence in his embattled attorney general, and Gonzales had stubbornly refused to yield to the political reality that his presence at the Justice Department meant continued conflict with Democrats and some Republicans in Congress as well as further investigations into the inner workings of the administration.

    "Getting him out of there is about four months or five months late," said one Republican strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid appraisal of the situation. "It reemphasizes that this thing is broken."

    If Gonzales's were the only case of loyalty overwhelming political hardheadedness in the Bush administration, there might be little more to his resignation than the fall from grace of a public official whose inspirational life story had almost a storybook quality to it. Gonzales rose from a childhood of poverty to a succession of distinguished appointments, culminating in his confirmation as the first Hispanic attorney general in the nation's history. (cue violins)

    But his case is not unique -- and that is what has confounded Bush's allies. The same pattern occurred with former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Long before Rumsfeld tendered his resignation on the eve of the 2006 elections, many of Bush's advisers had concluded that he should go. But the president refused to give satisfaction to the retired generals and Democratic officials publicly calling for his dismissal.

    So, too, with Bush's unexpected decision to nominate then-White House counsel Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court in the fall of 2005. Her selection produced a firestorm on the right, as conservatives and others accused the president of cronyism and challenged Miers's credentials to sit on the highest court in the land.

    Like Gonzales, Miers eventually faced reality. She asked that her name be withdrawn from consideration -- but only after an extraordinary month that further deflated the president's political standing at a time when he was on the defensive because of the slow White House response to Hurricane Katrina.

    "It's clear that it has hurt Bush to have hung on to somebody who by all accounts was clearly failing in his job," said Kenneth Adelman, a Reagan administration official who suggested that Bush has had a misplaced sense of loyalty to such advisers as Rumsfeld and Gonzales.

    "You're loyal to the mission. You're loyal to performance. You're loyal to the country," Adelman said. "You should always be nice to people, but there are more important things than being nice to your friends. You have to keep your eye on the mission and the performance in completing the mission."

    Fred Greenstein, a Princeton University scholar of the presidency, said he believes that Bush may be more calculating than his critics suggest, noting that he was one of the key figures in helping push Chief of Staff John H. Sununu out of his father's administration. "His DNA has been to stick by his people," Greenstein said. "Then he moves or he bends and denies that he has done that."

    Other Bush associates and former administration officials said the president has been heavily influenced by what he saw as personnel disarray during his father's term -- and feels it is important to stick by his people. "He has just seen good people lynched politically," said Mark McKinnon, the president's longtime media adviser. "He was a close observer of his father's administration and previous administrations."

    Bush's comments yesterday seemed to reinforce that view. Saying he had reluctantly accepted his attorney general's resignation, he noted pointedly: "His good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons."
    :D

    Gonzales will leave a trail of debris. (no shit)His image has been badly tarnished. His refusal to resign sooner further soured the already acidic relations between Congress and the White House. His Justice Department, in the words of Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), became dysfunctional.

    It may be too late to wonder how much of this could have been avoided, but it is clear when it started. Gonzales was promoted from White House counsel to attorney general at a moment when Bush believed he had limitless political capital, in the weeks after his reelection victory, when two other White House advisers -- Condoleezza Rice and Margaret Spellings -- were also given new jobs leading the State and Education departments.

    Bush knew he could trust Gonzales with one of the most sensitive posts in any administration. But in doing so, the president left himself vulnerable to charges that he was politicizing the Justice Department -- and as controversies mounted, Gonzales proved incapable of insulating himself or his department from those charges.

    The firings of nine U.S. attorneys and the Democratic takeover of Congress combined to provide the ingredients for Gonzales's undoing. Under fire, the attorney general was not able to offer explanations that satisfied lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

    The revelation of Gonzales's role as White House counsel in trying to pressure an ailing John D. Ashcroft to sign off from his hospital bed on aspects of a controversial warrantless surveillance program -- and his tortured explanation of those events -- further undermined his standing. (helluva job, gonzy)

    The resignation may have been meant to quell the partisan warfare that has raged for months, but early reactions suggested that it may not be a political circuit breaker. (not by a long shot)

    The search for Gonzales's replacement begins with a standoff between congressional Democrats' demands for a nonpartisan, non-controversial nominee and Bush's determination to not allow Democrats to become the de facto personnel directors for his administration.

    The path of least resistance for the president would be to find someone with dependable Republican credentials who can win confirmation with Democratic support. The confirmation process will demonstrate the extent to which both sides can move beyond the Gonzales controversy, but in the current environment, prospects for a compromise seem uncertain at best.

    What is not in doubt is the president's fierce (read: BLIND) commitment to those he selects to serve him.
    "Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States, Barack Obama."

    "Obama's main opponent in this election on November 4th (was) not John McCain, it (was) ignorance."~Michael Moore

    "i'm feeling kinda righteous right now. with my badass motherfuckin' ukulele!"
    ~ed, 8/7
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