“Not Involved” – Moon of Alabama

March 24, 2007

“Not Involved”

Gonzales, likening himself to a chief executive who delegates responsibility to others, said he knew few details about how Sampson was orchestrating the prosecutors’ removal.

"I was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on," he said. "That’s basically what I knew as the attorney general."
Gonzales: ‘Mistakes Were Made‘, March 14, 2007

—

The President acknowledged that he had "made a mistake" in not more closely supervising campaign activities.
…
But the tapes can be heard, he said, and will prove that he was not involved in the Watergate cover-up, he insisted.
Nixon Tells Editors, ‘I’m Not a Crook’, November 18, 1973

…

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senior advisers discussed the plan to remove seven United States attorneys
at a meeting last Nov. 27, 10 days before the dismissals were carried
out, according to a Justice Department calendar entry disclosed Friday.
Gonzales Met With Advisers on Dismissals, March 23, 2007

Posted by b on March 24, 2007 at 07:09 UTC | Permalink

Comments

And this is what it’s all about – McClatchy: New U.S. attorneys seem to have partisan records

Under President Bush, the Justice Department has backed laws that narrow minority voting rights and pressed U.S. attorneys to investigate voter fraud – policies that critics say have been intended to suppress Democratic votes.
…
Since 2005, McClatchy Newspapers has found, Bush has appointed at least three U.S. attorneys who had worked in the Justice Department’s civil rights division when it was rolling back longstanding voting-rights policies aimed at protecting predominantly poor, minority voters.
Another newly installed U.S. attorney, Tim Griffin in Little Rock, Ark., was accused of participating in efforts to suppress Democratic votes in Florida during the 2004 presidential election while he was a research director for the Republican National Committee. He’s denied any wrongdoing.
…
Last April, while the Justice Department and the White House were planning the firings, Rove gave a speech in Washington to the Republican National Lawyers Association. He ticked off 11 states that he said could be pivotal in the 2008 elections. Bush has appointed new U.S. attorneys in nine of them since 2005: Florida, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Arkansas, Michigan, Nevada and New Mexico. U.S. attorneys in the latter four were among those fired.

Posted by: b | Mar 24 2007 7:40 utc | 1

Yes b. As their overt plans fail so spectacularly their covert plans keep on ticking like clockwork.
They must be stopped dead in their tracks. That’s why I argue for impeaching the entire second level of operatives. If we do not we will be plagued with these criminals for decades to come.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Mar 24 2007 9:32 utc | 2

I am still amazed at people who have the brains, education and ambition to rise to leadership positions in commerce, industry and government but, when pressed for details, react as if they have spent their entire career with their heads in a fuzzy pink cloud, sorta like the way I spent my junior year in high school.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Mar 24 2007 12:07 utc | 3

“There is such a thing as a tesseract … “
SJennings@gwb43.com

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 24 2007 12:10 utc | 4

harry reid announced last night that gonzales will be gone within a week. first, why the grandstanding? seond, my question is for whom is gonzales being thrown under the bus – rove or bush or both? emptywheel wrote last night Beware the Shiny Object in the Gonzales News and pointed to the fact that the 16 day email gap “started when Kyle Sampson asked Harriet Miers whether or not Bush had to sign off on the firings”. not that i feel sorry for him, but it does make me wonder.

Posted by: conchita | Mar 24 2007 14:35 utc | 5

conchita #5,
Yeah a nice shiny object that seems to move like a carrot on a stick. How many weeks in a row are we going to hear that Gonzales won’t last another week. I believe Sen. Schumer said the same about a week ago.
This news story sure has taken away the spotlight on the carnage and death in Iraq the last few days.

Posted by: Rick | Mar 24 2007 15:33 utc | 6

This is about Harriet Mier’s involvement:
greg palast

Posted by: Chris Marlowe | Mar 24 2007 15:47 utc | 7

past crimes and cover ups. an excellent new hersh piece in the new yorker.

Last month, in Air Force, the journal of the Air Force Association, Patrick Casey, a criminal lawyer, and his father, Aloysius Casey, a retired Air Force lieutenant general, unravelled the truth of one of the demoralizing stories that, three decades ago, marked the end of a losing war. In April, 1972, the Pentagon announced that Air Force General John D. Lavelle, the commander of all air operations in Vietnam, was retiring for “personal and health reasons.” In fact, as it became clear over the next two months, he had been relieved of his command and forced to retire—demoted by two ranks—after an internal inquiry determined that he had ordered bombing attacks on unauthorized targets in North Vietnam…..

Posted by: Anonymous | Mar 24 2007 16:53 utc | 8

bullets
newyorker/jane mayers exposes arkansas new US attorney griffen’s experience w/caging black voters.
“It’s no fun being me right now,” ….
“Caging is not a derogatory term,” he said, as soon as he got on the phone.“It’s a direct-mail term. It derives from caging categories of mail in steel shelves and files.”

Posted by: Anonymous | Mar 24 2007 17:09 utc | 9

oops, 8 and 9 were mine.

Posted by: annie | Mar 24 2007 17:48 utc | 10

Gonzales: “I didn’t had sex with D. Kyle Sampson.”

Posted by: b | Mar 24 2007 20:39 utc | 11

Just like at Abu Ghraib, the administration will try to make the story about underlings. They’re more powerful underlings, but (pardonable) underlings none the less.
It looks like the incompetence story is sinking; so, my guess is they’ll try and make it the CREEP story, rogue extremists in the administration. Of course, as with CREEP and Abu Ghraib, the ‘extremists’ were following orders from the highest levels of the administration. Here, it looks like that means Bush, Rove and Miers. My guess is they’ll tolerate a lot of blood letting in the ranks to save their own asses.

Posted by: bcgister | Mar 25 2007 2:00 utc | 12

Remember that other scandal, pushed off the page by Alberto Gonzales?
GI Special
“Of Course It Was About The Money; Former Halliburton Execs Held Contract For Walter Reed MC Services”

And, when one starts turning over rocks what should come into view but an A-76 military contract with IAP Worldwide Service, (IAP) which took a $120 million contract to run portions of the WRAMC services for facilities management. Immediately after the awarding of the contract the facilities management staff was reduced to 50 privately employed workers.
The CEO of IAP Worldwide is Al Neffgen, who previously served as COO of Government and Infrastructure for the Americas Region of Kellogg Brown and Root.
The President of IAP Worldwide is Dave Swindle, formerly the vice president of Business Acquisition and National Security Programs at the Halliburton subsidiary KBR. Charles F. Dominy, IAP vice president in charge of government affairs, formerly served as the manager of Halliburton’s Government Affairs Office in Washington, D.C.

“Screwing The Vets Isn’t Incompetence; It’s A Trade Off”
“If Someone Gets The Gravy, Someone Gets The Shaft”

A former executive for the one of the nation’s leading arms producers, Westinghouse, Harvey hired IAP Worldwide Services-run by two former Halliburton executives-which promptly reduced the number of people providing service at Walter Reed from 300 to 60.
In contrast are the way the ‘Big Five’ arms companies, Lockheed Martin. Northup Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon are treated. The first three of the above ‘Five’ will corner one out of every four dollars in the $481.5 billion military budget.
In turn, the companies pony up tens of millions in contributions by Election Day. Since 2000, Lockheed Martin, Northup Grumman and General Dynamics have poured $62.5 million into the election cycles, favoring Republicans at a rate of a little more than two to one.

Getting Screwed

The lack of planning for medical and hospice care, rehabilitation, counseling and therapy – as with the Congressional decision to close/replace the premier military hospital in 2005 – occurred even after the Pentagon, the administration and the Congress had recognized the bloody human costs the Iraq occupation was bringing home. Instead of attending funerals and visiting amputees and paraplegics at Walter Reed, the Administration and the Pentagon seized an opportunity to spend more tax money and get new stuff – even though that would mean an immediate cutoff of improvement and maintenance funds for Walter Reed, filled to overflowing already with sick solders.
Bush doesn’t like to veto legislation, unless it offends his religiously-couched “love of life” or prevents him from going to war with whomever he pleases, whenever he wants, and for no particular reason. We knew Bush and Cheney had nothing but contempt for the Iraqi and Afghani people. Apparently, that contempt extends to serving Americans as well. Had either Bush or Cheney, or Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz cared about the impacts of their war-play on the people of this country, they would have dealt with this well-known medical care shortfall, shown concern over what BRAC-listing Walter Reed would mean to our recovering veterans. These so-called leaders they would have demanded executable plans to ensure both the bureaucratic and medical capacity was sufficient.
But neither Bush nor Cheney care one whit for the fighting soldiers, and neither wishes to be reminded of the shattered limbs and lives left when the fighting is done. The ugly truth doesn’t fit their carefully constructed narrative of “winning” and “wars on terror” and “patriotism.” As a Bush aide explained to Ron Suskind a few years ago, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”
That reality means that not only are the hapless targets of our imperialism screwed, but so is every serving soldier and Marine in Iraq. At least in the Roman Army, the milites could expect to share in the booty of conquered lands. In the American empire, that privilege is reserved for Halliburton, as our wasted foot-soldiers are buried alive.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Mar 25 2007 8:17 utc | 13

Ever since Gonzo made the morning news in Denmark last week, I’ve figured he was toast.

Posted by: Chuck Cliff | Mar 25 2007 8:20 utc | 14

GI Special
“Bush-Loving Scum Spit On Veteran”
March 22, 2007 by Tamara Dietrich
The Daily Press (Virginia)

Patriots can suffer all manner of indignities for their country. Nathan Eckstrand is no exception.
The 23-year-old philosophy student is one of about 90 people from Hampton Roads who joined 30,000 others from around the country to march in the nation’s capital Saturday against the Iraq war. It wasn’t his first demonstration.
Somewhere between 21st and 22nd streets along the march route, Eckstrand says, counter-demonstrators awash in black leather, camouflage, Marine insignias and the American flag lined both sides of a sidewalk.
It was a gantlet of abuse.
“They were literally shouting in our ears,” recalls Eckstrand, who is volunteering at a Mediation Center in Norfolk before starting grad school this fall. Eckstrand’s mother marched a couple of paces ahead.
“One of them I guess was carried along with momentum and the feeling of hatred on their side,” he says. “He spat on me. And as I was walking away I heard him call me a traitor.”
He called Eckstrand another name as well. Expletive deleted.
Nice.
Clair Langford of Poquoson marched the gantlet, too. She’s 26-year-old student government vice president at Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton.
She’s also an Army veteran. So she was placed with other veterans near the head of the march.
Langford had never demonstrated before and had high hopes. When she first got off the bus, she was so overwhelmed, so grateful to see so many people of like mind that she wept.
Later, at the gantlet, tears streamed down her face again. But they were tears of another sort.
“There was so much anger and so much hate,” Langford says. “They were cursing us. They were flipping us off, spitting. That was very difficult for me to go through because there was so much hate in the air.”

Next time you hear about vets being spat upon, remember the reality.
Same here as after Vietnam.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Mar 25 2007 8:39 utc | 15

Frank Rich (liberated): When Will Fredo Get Whacked?

When the Justice Department officially notified him on the evening of Sept. 29, 2003, that it was opening an investigation into the outing of Valerie Wilson, he immediately informed Andrew Card, Mr. Bush’s chief of staff. But Mr. Gonzales waited another 12 hours to officially notify the president and inform White House employees to preserve all materials relevant to the investigation. As Chuck Schumer said after this maneuver became known, “Every good prosecutor knows that any delay could give a culprit time to destroy the evidence.”
…
“I’m not going to resign,” Mr. Gonzales asserted last week as he played the minority card, rounding up Hispanic supporters to cheer his protestations of innocence. “I’m going to stay focused on protecting our kids.” Actually, he’s going to stay focused on protecting the president. Once he can no longer be useful in that role, it’s a sure thing that like Scooter before him, Fredo will be tossed overboard.

Posted by: b | Mar 25 2007 9:48 utc | 16

Back to Main