White House fear: 'Media spectacle'

If you invoke Executive priveledge, doesn't it have to involve issues of national security?

Warning: sarcastic, rhetorical questions to follow.

Was engaging in egotistical grandstanding with no legal ground on the demo list of things to do that got them elected?

IF ending the war is the number one priority how does this help support that goal? Doesn't it in fact slow it down? Or is it possible that the dems really don't care about the war ending and
( gasp! ) were only attacking the president for political purposes?
My heart is broken, I had such high hopes-
Next thing you know we'll find out global warming is a hoax, Hillary and Bill are not getting along very well, and Ted Kennedy is taking over Britney Spears empty rehab suite.

If Dubya and his lying lyers aren't lying then why are Rove & Miers even involved in the "performance" employment terminations of the USAs?

Neocon Dubya parroter 29% dead-enders are so silly.

Yep, I imagine it would be quite the spectacle if the American public was given an insight into the way this administration makes decisions and policy.

Thsi administration has no clue what "principle" is. Haul them in, all of them.

Sorry, different issue here. If the administation did NOT have political reasons for the US Attorney firings, then testifying under oath should not be a problem. They did, they don't want to admit it. In their "Unitary Executive" mindset, they are not accountable to anyone. Simply put they are wrong. From Nixon to Grant, executive officials HAVE spoken under oath.
Mr Rove is afraid his political machinations will be spilled for all to see, or he'll join Scooter in the pen for Perjury. THAT is the real reason for this so called "Stand on Principle" Their primary objective is saving Turdblossom's well rounded posterior from the calaboose.

So if they're obligated to tell the truth, what's the beef with swearing to tell the truth? If they've done nothing wrong, why not swear to it?

The president has a right to hire and fire any U.S. attorney. He does not need anyone's permission to fire a U.S. attorney. Yet, the Dumbocrats want to hold hearings?" Subpoena people to testify?

This is not a crime, firing people (except perhaps the Clintoons firing the Travel Office to put in their own Travel office!).

How is this conducting the nation's business? All it is doing is conducting the business of the Loony Left that wants to bring this administration down over anything from someone sneezing to someone breathing.

But, bring it on. Because the sillier and more ridiculous the Demoncrat party gets, the more it helps the GOP in 2008!!

Hey people! This is about principle ... uhmm, isn't what this administration is all about? Principles?

Like, the principle by which you attack countries before they actually do something to you because they look dangerous and God knows what they're up to anyway.

Or, like the principal where you send your troops to a dangerous place to act as bait for all the terrorists, so you don't have to fight them at home? After all, nobody wants Iraqi Sunni insurgents attacking, say, Lombard!

Isn't it clear that it's time we stopped questioning this president and just let him get the job done? You know, that job? The one where he was going to smoke 'em out of their caves, "dead or alive," Texas-style?

Hey, wait a second. There aren't any caves in Iraq, are there?

+++

The children asked him if to kill was not a sin. "Not when he looked so fierce," his mommy butted in. "If looks could kill, it would have been us instead of him."

we pay all those people's salaries; we have a right to hear what they say verbatim about their involvement in anything. only people with something to hide don't want to talk under oath.

And I thought the problem was that they HAD done something wrong, take your pick which thing, and that any PRINCIPLES they do have would be doing what is right, not refusing to cooperate in any sense. These guys can really put a spin on OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE which is what you or I would get charged with if we were to do the same thing. I'm all in favor of innocent until proven guilty, but then again if you have the right to withhold information that can make that determination it sort of defeats the purpose.

Here's to the basic principles of the Constitution which speak to a balance of powers between the executive, legislative, and judicial powers. Oops...I forgot the fine print on this document that says, "except the executive branch , they can do whatever they want when it is in the Presidents and his cronies best interest."

They are right about one thing, Americans are becoming weak. Any one with the slightest bit of guts would have impeached this guy along time ago.

Bush is right on this one!This will end up making the dems look terrible and open up a landslide victory in 08!

And ghoti,under what grounds would you want Bush impeached on? Show us your "guts" and tell us!
Paulo

To all the moronic and idiotic Bush Supporters - The reason this is a big deal and Rove does not want to talk under oath in the hearings is because U.S. Attorneys were targeted if they were going after Republican corruption and not going after enough Democratic corruption; it had nothing to do with the firing itself but with the politicization of the firings. Fitzgerald in Illinois was targeted in 2006 - The Reason? Going after the corrupt Republican Administration in Illinois at that time. Thing is is that Fitzgerald has also been going after the Daley administration. He does not play favorites when it comes to going after corruption. So all you Repubs can now go back to Rush and find out what your talking points should now be.

"But, bring it on. Because the sillier and more ridiculous the Demoncrat party gets, the more it helps the GOP in 2008!!"

Keep on believing that... Meanwhile the rest of the country demands answers about this corrupt administration!
At this rate,the GOP will be lucky if they pick up any county clerk positions in 08!

As an independent voter what I find most chilling is the low ranking given by Justice Dept to Fitzgerald. I've been a big fan of his whether he went after Chicago city corruption or Illinois governors. He has been one of the brightest beacons for this country showing that no one is above the law.

If the Bush administration is able to hide under a rock and not tell how they justify these rankings then I wonder if justice is dying in this country.

There have been many bipartisan comments from people that have marvelled at the incompetence of Gonzales during his term. This is the last straw that shows why he must be out of office ASAP. He doesn't use law to protect the people of the US. He abuses it only as an attempt to protect his president and his party from embarrassment.

But, bring it on. Because the sillier and more ridiculous the Demoncrat party gets, the more it helps the GOP in 2008!!

Posted by: John D | Mar 21, 2007 10:17:54 AM

This is exactly what the White House is NOT doing!!! Let's assume you are right and nothing wrong has been done. Why would the administration want to give the appearance they are hiding something?

2 possibilites:

1. They are hiding something and are scared to allow anyone to testify under oath.

2. They are complete idiots for allowing themselves to appear to be hiding something. Rove and co. are typically smarter than that.

Care to explain?

If this is a "Partisan Witch hunt", can someone please explain to me why NONE of the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee voted "nay" on the vote this morning to issue the subpoenas ?

considering that it is rove and miers we are talking about, maybe it is in everyone's best interest that we avoid tv cameras.

What would Jack Bauer do?

This administration prefers to operate in secrecy so that it's policies never see the light of day. It also helps them in deceiving the public. This is not the way American government should be run. I remember that Bush made a comment about the job being easier if he were king, pretended that was a joke, then went on to try to build the monarchy. It worked while the Republicans had control, but now the administration needs to be held responsible.

Yeah, kind of like the subpoenas, "media spectacle", and taxpayers money spent investigating a blow job. At least this involves actual corruption cases (yes, I know, Clinton did it too -- but why didn't the Republicans go after that? Sex get more attention, I guess). The "media spectacle" involving the 'truth of Clinton's little affair certainly displayed the Republican's concern for conducting the nation's business. And don't throw a list of things from the Democratic side, because, yes, I agree they pull the same stuff and the little people get caught up in it and cheer when the blood spills. And then they don't see how everything is burning all around them, because they are too busy enjoying their high school football team rivalries.

Would you at least agree with me that both 'teams' have corruption issues, questionable motives, and aren't 100% concerned with the good of this country? If we agree, shouldn't we be holding ALL elected officials accountable?

The bottom line is:

If these people have nothing to hide, then testify under oath and have that testimony recorded, period.

There is no other issue.

If they will not testify under oath, and/or have that testimony recorded, then they intend to lie, there's no other conclusion to draw.

Rev. William Hayashi

After seeing what happened to Scooter for lying under oath, Bush came-up with a way for Rove to get away with lying; Don't let Rove swear to tell the truth under GOD.

This isn't a "media spectacle" W.

It's called Checks and Balances,it's also called Oversight,something that your administration went 6 years without under the lockstep Republican Congress.

No one is above the law Chimpy!

Sorry John D. This is more than "the right to hire and fire" This is obstruction of justice.
Illinois own Senator puts it well.."We have an unusual circumstance we face right now. Never before in history has a President and an Attorney General fired a group of U.S. attorneys en masse, in a group, other than the expected turnover… with the change of administration," said Durbin.

"We asked the Congressional Research Service if they could undertake an analysis of U.S. attorney firings that occurred other than the changeover of a Presidency. This is what they found: Only 2 U.S. attorneys out of 486 confirmed by the Senate over the past 25 years have been fired in the middle of a Presidential term for reasons unrelated to misconduct -- 2 out of 486. So for some to argue that this is routine, to fire those attorneys, the facts say otherwise. Only 2 out of 486 have been fired in the midst of their term."

And Durbin pulls no punches in asserting that the firings were anything but routine, saying that those fired were let go simply because their independence was construed as a lack of loyalty to George W. Bush.

"Federal prosecutors are supposed to be independent. They are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, but, unlike other Federal public servants, they have a measure of independence," said the Illinois Senator, who is second-in-command to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). "That is what is at stake here. Eight U.S. attorneys who did not play ball with the political agenda of this White House were dropped from the team."

Stop calling every objection to your lies a product of the "loony left" It's a great way to dismiss your opponent without dealing with the real issues. it won't wash.

If you invoke Executive priveledge, doesn't it have to involve issues of national security?

Posted by: jethro | Mar 21, 2007 9:45:47 AM

------

Doesn't matter anyway.

It's not in the Constitution and Bush says he's a "STRICT CONSTRUCTIONIST."

So, it would be incredibly two-faced for Bush to claim an extra-constitution privilege now, wouldn't it?

Snow says:

"They are under an obligation to tell the truth – that is the case whenever you talk to members of Congress,''

This certainly wasn't the case for Scooter Libby!!

This administration has lost the right of assumptive credibility based on principles. The threat of perjury is the only option to ensure the truth is told.

It IS important to know if a member of a political party is attempting to break the law, and then hide this by continuing to fire the individuals in the judicial branch whose job it is to ensure the law not broken.

Have we reached the Orwellian point of no return?

Why doesn't the "he must be hiding something because he won't testify" logic apply all the time?

Don't want to get off track- but a big reason why the war was/is justified was that SH was not forthright in verifying that he had destroyed his WMD. The admin and Congress believed that since he wasn't forthright that he was must be hiding something.
Given the stakes I agreed then, and still do, with erroring on the side of caution. ( like they needed my validation!)

Bush critics in these strings typically dismiss that off hand- until now when it works to their advantage.

heartburn,
Inspectors were on the ground. This Administration didn't give them time to do their jobs.

"Given the stakes I agreed then, and still do, with erroring on the side of caution."

The course of events that has led to over a hundred thousand deaths, with no post war plan to stabilize a strategically important nation in the midst of hostile neighbors is the side of caution, heartburn?

I would have thought that allowing the UN inspectors the time they were begging for to complete their work, since they were finding do evidence of active WMD programs, while we had Iraq militarily contained, would have been the side of caution.

Terrible comparison, heartburn. Not even close.

Actually ridiculous.

hateburn,

You need some new RNC talking points,call Bruce.

You're parroting old,expired GOP talking points that have already been proven false.

"Help me KKKarl" !!!!!!!!!!!!!

.....do you write for the RSES Journal?
you sound familiar........

The whole basis was that since he had not been able to meet the requirements that the UN had dictated that people believed he was "hiding something "
The only stretch here is that SH had WMD at one point-
Bush has only NOT agreed to allow staff to testify under oath, he is clearly avoiding a witch hunt designed to uncover "whatever"- they have no idea what they are looking for only that they hope to find something. I honestly believe that there has been some ugly politicing by Rove- I am not defending his actions. There is some grandstanding by the Dems. Congress is wasting time in either case.

Tony-
Erroring on the side of caution means that AT THE TIME the decision was based on the reasonable thing to do. But I forgot about the clairvoyance feature you must be blessed with.

Were you able to predict that there would be "people" in iraq after the fall of SH that would be willing to sacrifice innocent human beings in order to generate more hate and sectarion violence? This is where the hundreds of thousands of deaths are coming from.

Heartburn,

You are so right. The Saudi Arabian Government hasn't been forthright in revealing their tacit (or worse) support of Wahhabi anti-American propaganda and terrorist groups.

North Korea hasn't been upfront about its nasty nukes. Pakistan hasn't been upfront about its unwillingness to go after terrorist hiding in their country.

Iraq's new government hasn't been upfront about it's support of death squads and illegal militias. Iran, well they haven't been upfront about anything, except their leader's belief that the holocaust is fiction.

It's time to call on Cowboy Bush to go preemptive on all these scoundrels, or better yet, go preemptive 'NUCULAR'! YeeHaw!, let's all rally round the wise one.

John E-

"I'll show him- I will hit the exclamation mark a whole bunch of times"

Thanks - another completely rational response.

"Were you able to predict that there would be "people" in iraq after the fall of SH that would be willing to sacrifice innocent human beings in order to generate more hate and sectarion violence? This is where the hundreds of thousands of deaths are coming from.

Posted by: heartburn | Mar 21, 2007 4:04:58 PM

Yes. Many people were able to predict that. Including one Dick Cheney.

"[A few weeks later, when the uprisings occurred among the Shi'a in the South and the Kurds in the North,] I was not an enthusiast about getting U.S. forces and going into Iraq. We were there in the southern part of Iraq to the extent we needed to be there to defeat his forces and to get him out of Kuwait, but the idea of going into Baghdad, for example, or trying to topple the regime wasn't anything I was enthusiastic about. I felt there was a real danger here that you would get bogged down in a long drawn-out conflict, that this was a dangerous, difficult part of the world; if you recall we were all worried about the possibility of Iraq coming apart, the Iranians restarting the conflict that they'd had in the eight-year bloody war with the Iranians and the Iraqis over eastern Iraq. We had concerns about the Kurds in the north, the Turks get very nervous every time we start to talk about an independent Kurdistan.

Plus there was the notion that you were going to set yourself a new war aim that we hadn't talked to anybody about. That you hadn't gotten Congress to approve, hadn't talked to the American people about. You're going to find yourself in a situation where you've redefined your war aims and now set up a new war aim that in effect would detract from the enormous success you just had. What we set out to do was to liberate Kuwait and to destroy his offensive capability, that's what I said repeatedly in my public statements. That was the mission I was given by the President. That's what we did. Now you can say, well, you should have gone to Baghdad and gotten Saddam. I don't think so. I think if we had done that we would have been bogged down there for a very long period of time with the real possibility we might not have succeeded."

Dick Cheney in a 1996 interview.

John E,

Nice to see TeamBush squirm and wriggle on this one.
Last thing any of these swells, dandies, and nar-do-wells want to do is raise their hand and swear to tell the truth.

The reason being; every time they open their mouths a lie tumbles out! It's reflexive, can't be helped.

Now comes the good part. Enjoy buddy!!

The Pill-uzi gonna serve up a grilled Turd Blossom.
EEEEEWWWWW!

Pardon my Naivety in regards to the American Parliamentary system and laws that Govern them , but I always was under the impression that the Government elected was under the same probity as the people it protects,morally ethically and legally. I am not sure if I am correct but if Nixon tried the same would events have been different....something to ponder I wonder?

dt- your right.

There is a good argument for - we can only handle what we have now.
Or that the countries you cite will change their policy when we succeed in Iraq.

Or that when we succeed that the other countries that have an interest will finally back what is the right thing to do..

Could go on- but the fact is this is a media circus hiding the fact that the Dems are 0 for 6 since being in power.
1 for 7 if you count there success in the Libby jihad.

"There is a good argument for - we can only handle what we have now.
Or that the countries you cite will change their policy when we succeed in Iraq."

Heartburn....we surpassed the point of "we can only handle what we have now" when we went charging unprovoked into Iraq. The time to keep the "eye on the prize" was then, while directly confronting bin Laden in Afghanistan.

As for the second part, "succeed in Iraq" and then the whole Middle East will embrace Jefferson, or something like that.

That was all some fantasy of the delusional neocons, it had no chance of happening since day one. I'd like to think that those bungling neocon morons could fancy up a "hail Mary" and make the Iraq nightmare go away, but that only happens in fairy tales, you know, like the kind that W's mummy reads to him before bedtime.

Bush will have succeeded on some level in the Middle East though. He will have created a 'Greater Iran', an unlimited supply of Jihadist bent on our destruction, a Saudi Arabian "ally" that might decide they need to protect the Sunni minority in what's left of Iraq, further destabilizing the region. Don't you just love those happy neocon endings?