Pete McCloskey is a lion of a Republican, the kind they don't make anymore. Last year, he rented an apartment in Lodi, CA, to run against Richard Pombo in the Republican primary. He cut Pombo off at the knees, and deserves as much credit as anyone in bringing him down.
He authored a "Guest Opinion" in today's San Francisco Chronicle, talking about the parallels between Watergate's Saturday Night Massacre and the current DoJ firings. And he knows of what he speaks, because he was in Congress in the Watergate days, and was the first Congressman to call for Nixon's impeachment on the floor of the House.
McCloskey's resumé includes other notable actions.
- Authored Endangered Species Act
- Co-founder of Earth Day
- Campaigned against corrupt Republicans in 2006
- Will be doing so in 2008, with particular interest in John Doolittle (CA-04)
- Challenged Nixon in 1972 on anti-war platform
I've been mostly thinking about the DoJ business in terms of the Iglesias case, implicating as it does Domenici & Wilson, and what it will mean in my home state. But I think McCloskey's onto something here. It was different in Watergate days, because they had an Attorney General who refused to can the "inconvenient" prosecutor. (And that "no Senate confirmation" thing hadn't been snuck through via the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, either.) So Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre included the firing of not one, but two, principled Attorneys General: Elliot Richardson, and the DoJ #2, William Ruckelshaus. More Republicans not cut from the same kind of cloth as the likes of today's Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
I can't quote the whole piece, sadly, so it's worth a click to read the entire thing. Robert Bork did the dirty dead of firing Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, which ultimately sealed his fate when Reagan later nominated him to the Supreme Court, and the Senate rejected the nomination.
Now, 32 years later, another Republican attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, faces questioning by both the Senate and House Judiciary committees, on grounds that he has used his high office for political purposes to remove eight U.S. attorneys, several of whom had been involved in investigations of Republican congressmen, such as Randy "Duke" Cunningham of San Diego, Robert Ney of Ohio and John Doolittle of Rocklin (Placer County).
And John Conyers, who's been in Congress so long he was on Nixon's Enemies List back then, will be presiding...
The investigations now being conducted by both the House and Senate Judiciary committees can go a long way toward restoring the faith of the people that our nation's courts, laws and prosecutors remain untainted by political influence. Having served with Conyers for some 15 years, I would not want to be in the shoes of Attorney General Gonzales when he is asked to stand and swear to tell the truth about the recent wave of firings of U.S. attorneys, at least eight of whom were presiding over public corruption investigations.
The way McCloskey sees it, the Bush Administration's shooting the Republican Party - and the American people - in the foot.
Among the reasons many Americans have lost faith in their government, the perceived use of the U.S. attorney general's office for political purposes looms large. In the past, independent prosecutors, such as San Francisco's John Keker, who prosecuted Lt. Col. Oliver North in the Iran-Contra scandal, and former Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who is the chief prosecutor in the Lewis "Scooter" Libby trial, have preserved respect for the judicial process despite the machinations of political appointees in Washington. Under the Bush administration, however, the White House has been able to convince its attorney general to provide questionable legal opinions on the use of torture, warrantless wire-tapping and other practices that cause ordinary citizens to wonder whether government lawyers, like politicians, can be prevailed upon to change their views for political gain.
THE NEW MEXICO PERSPECTIVE
Everyone's been writing about this, and I don't have much to add. Except the quick photoshop entry, right: Pajama Pete Domenici. People are talking about the whole business around here: Domenici's 75 - maybe he'll decide to retire after all. Tom Udall (NM-03, Dem) is certain to go for an open seat. (Why else would he be sitting on 10x the campaign funds he spent in the 2006 midterm??) If the seat's open, and especially if Wilson's weakened by this latest scandal, this race shoots up near the top of the potential Dem pickups for the Senate in 2008.
And leaves Dems in a good position to take NM-01, as well. This Iglesias business stinks more every day. The SwiftbBoat crowd, morphed into Americans for Honesty on Issues was hammering Patricia Madrid in the hotly contested catfight in NM-01 last fall. If you click forward to page 4 in this FEC filing, you'll see that group's funding came from one Bob J. Perry of Houston, TX. One donation only, of $2 million from him. Who funded the Swift Boaters, too. The group's agent was Sue Walden, reported in the New York times (on 10-11-06) as a "close ally of Tom Delay".
So, the swiftboaters are trashing Patricia Madrid for NOT prosecuting a Dem scandal in Santa Fe. Though I've read somewhere that she was asked to back off so FBI could investigate. And Domenici calls Iglesias at home to push it along, and Wilson calls him to "complain" that the prosecution wasn't moving fast enough. But she was complaining, not pressuring.
This stinks, too. I'm betting there's some campaign no-no's to be found this this business, too. (If only I had C-SPAN 3!!) Domenici's standing by his earlier statement in a new statement:
When I was first asked, in response to a chorus of questions, about whether I pressured or threatened Mr. Iglesias, I responded that I did not know what he was talking about. Today he testified that he "felt violated." I still do not know what he is talking about.
MEET HECTOR BALDERAS
Here he is (on the left) with Senator Jeff Bingaman (right). I've been asking around about him, and there's a lot of good to be said about New Mexico's State Auditor. So take a first look at a potential (likely?) member of 111th Congress's Freshman Class. Hector Balderas, from Wagon Mound, NM: