By White House standards Alberto Gonzales had himself a great weekend but why did the U.S Attorney general show a sudden interest in Justice?
The fact is there are only two places where to crimes of George W. Bush can see the light of day. The first and most powerful is a 110th Congress that may very well have the nerve to stand up to Executive Tyranny. The second is those segments of the Fourth Estate that have not already been compromised by the corporate take over of the press in America.
When you combine Alberto Gonzales two activities of the previous weekend, a very scary scenario unfolds. For the first time in its 219-year history, the Washington offices of a legislator has been raided by the executive branch. The following morning, Alberto Gonzales goes on national television to announce the Feds may start prosecuting journalists for publishing classified information.
The message to Congress may very well be "Roll the dice because we know the skeletons in your closets better than you know ours." The message to the press is certainly "Keep printing the truth and we will throw you in jail."
Is it a coincidence that these two parties are intimidated on the same weekend or a message from a president that has been overstepping for so long, that he doesn't know where to stop? Is this just a matter of the Bush administration using the tools they know best,
scare tactics and intimidation?
The fact that some members of the legislative branch are becoming more and more critical of Bush's power grab and a few of the better newspapers are starting to sound more and more like progressive websites hasn't gone unnoticed by the White House.
One recent revelation grants far more power to these threats. When it was revealed that the White House compiled a list of every phone call in the United States any senator or congressman with anything to hide heard that message of Gonzales, weekend activities loud and clear.
The implicit chilling effect on congressmen and senators, who might otherwise consider holding Bush accountable for his own abuses, could not be missed.
At the level of the press, all whistle blowing must have suddenly dried up and anyone who has already contacted the press must be scared senseless. That Sunday morning statement may have served the Bush administration very well.
Gonzales's message to both government whistleblowers and the press corps is hard to escape. If you disclose apparent misconduct by the Bush administration in areas of national security, you will be hunted down and punished.
An administration that for six years has been altering the Constitution to advance Executive Power and create unrestrained authority was able to ignore Congressional misdoings when Congress was giving Bush the green light but Congress may change soon. An MSM that for the most part ignored every Constitutional Crisis committed by Bush was also left alone for the most part. But that relationship is changing by means of public opinion and concerned public servants choosing to contact the press.
So all of a sudden Alberto Gonzales shows an interest in Justice? Never mind the fact that if he wanted to take an interest in the goings on in the Legislative Branch, he had the pick of the litter in his own party. A broad subpoena of Rep. William J. Jefferson's office placed thousand of Democratic documents in Republican possession and who knows what has been done with these documents between the seizure and Bush's recent announcement that these documents will be sealed for forty-five days. It almost smells like a semi-justifiable Watergate Break In!
Never mind the fact that an investigation into journalism could certainly start with anti-union or anti-worker bias. There could be many investigations into the media but the one place where this Justice Dept. takes an active interest is persecuting whistle blowers and the reporters they contact, people who are trying to show Americans the truth!
This is by far the most morally challenged Attorney General that anyone can remember.
Bush concocted more than 750 statements indicating that the president would not obey laws he didn't like, or honor the recorded intent of those who passed them. Among the most outrageous was Mr. Bush's statement that he did not consider himself bound by a ban on torturing prisoners. Mr. Gonzales was part of the team that came up with the rationalization for torture, as well as for the warrantless eavesdropping on Americans' e-mail and phone calls.
If Mr. Gonzales has developed a respect for legislative intent or a commitment to law enforcement, he could start by using his department's power to enforce the Voting Rights Act to protect Americans, rather than challenging minority voting rights and endorsing such obviously discriminatory practices as the gerrymandering in Texas or the Georgia voter ID program. He could enforce workplace safety laws, like those so tragically unenforced at the nation's coal mines, instead of protecting polluters and gun traffickers.
He could uphold the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention Against Torture, instead of coming up with cynical justifications for violating them. He could repudiate the disgraceful fiction known as "unlawful enemy combatant," which the administration cooked up after 9/11 to deny legal rights to certain prisoners.
And he could suggest that the administration follow Congress's clear and specific intent for the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: outlawing wiretaps of Americans without warrants.
These actions from Alberto Gonzales are no surprise.
The only true shock at the Attorney General's attack to destroy one of America's core precepts of freedom is that it didn't occurring earlier. After all, this is the same man who made the case that torture was okay, that it was legal to jail suspects without an attorney, fine to tape phone calls of Americans without a warrant, and no problem compiling a list without legal permission of every phone call in the United States.
Now the Congressional ire is being ridiculed across the nation and almost justifiable so;
Where, pray tell, was Congress' outrage and determination to defend the Constitution when the Bush administration:
* Assumed unilateral executive authority over any and all questions of war and peace, and brazenly manipulated intelligence reports to justify its prior decision to invade Iraq?
* Declared that the president has the power to ignore federal statutes and international treaties governing the treatment of enemy prisoners?
* Assumed the power to designate American citizens as "enemy combatants" and lock them up without charges or any semblance of due process for the duration of an amorphous "war on terror" that has no end in sight?
* Claimed that the president has the inherent power as commander in chief to order the secret surveillance of the international e-mail and telephone conversations of U.S. citizens - and to obtain their phone re- cords to create vast databanks?
Perhaps Congressional leaders do seem a bit petty citing a constitutional clause protecting the "speech and debate" of Congress when we consider their past performance. Even more laughable taken in the context of we have finally found a domestic spying program that Congress opposes.
But when you consider the source, it is pretty obvious that this Attorney General's only objective is shutting up anyone that can stop Bush and keeping the most secretive White House in history from seeing anything similar to the light of day.
It's not difficult to tick off a quick and chilling list of news stories whose sources and documentation easily could have been dubbed a matter of national security by the powers that be. Radiation exposure to "downwinders," U-2 flights over the former Soviet Union, CIA shenanigans in Cuba, Iran-Contra, the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, faulty pre-9/11 intelligence, Abu Ghraib, abuses at Guantanamo Bay, "renditioning" of detainees to secret overseas prisons, National Security Agency warrantless wiretapping and massive data mining of Americans' phone calls.
Congress may be totally justified in finally crying foul and the next Congress may not be so forgiving of George W. Bush's crimes and misdemeanors.
It is quite possible that the actions of Alberto Gonzales this weekend were a means of making sure that George W. Bush is someplace where he shouldn't be on January 19, 2009, in the White House. An insurance policy against justice!