You Don't Say

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing. "Over the past two and a half years, I have seen tyranny, dishonesty, corruption and depravity of types I never thought possible. I've seen things I didn't know man was capable of." -- Alberto Ganzales Alberto Gonzales on the occasion of his resignation from the post of Attorney General of the United States; September 14, 2007.

Gonzales and the Democratic Fear of Flying Monkeys

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeWhen I was three years old, my parents let me watch the Wizard of Oz. A wholesome movie, right? Holy crap did it terrify me. I made my parents inspect the closet every night before bed because I knew, I JUST KNEW those damn flying monkeys were in there. I could hear them scratching around - digging for scraps of mortal flesh and since they hadn't gotten to me yet, I knew they were HUNGRY! One full year later, I was able to go to bed with the lights off. So here we are, ten months into the so-called Democratic Revolution and Pelosi and Reid have accomplished damn near nothing. The only thing they can chalk up is the pitifully small increase in the minimum wage. We are still in Iraq, a war criminal is still running the country and we haven't regained our civil rights. I have heard the hand-wringing apologists for the Dems - the excuses about a one vote majority in the Senate, the Blue Dog Democrats that are infesting the House of Representatives and the biggest whopper, "impeachment wouldn't be good for the nation." Last Summer and Fall, I ran all around the district telling people the Dems were going to act on their agenda and by electing Dems we would get our country back. Sadly, what I didn't realize, we would also need to get rid of the Dems that are IN Congress to get our PARTY back. Gonzales is off the table and gone. Now can we get back to the war crimes at hand? Can we get out of Iraq? Can we maybe get our rights back? I have no inkling as to why the Dems are continuing to fund the war and most recently, agreed to let Bush continue to abuse the FISA courts. Who is even letting these bills come to the damn floor? If I knew this crap was going on, I would NOT have been knocking on doors for months and months last year in an effort to get these sorry individuals in power. The Dems got voted into power about 10 months ago. When will they come out from under the bed? When will they overcome their fear? When will they begin to govern? It took me a year to conquer my fear of the flying monkeys and I was three years old. I hope the Democrats get their act together soon, our soldiers are dying on the battlefield while Pelosi cries under her bed.

Gonzales gone, watch where you step.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlarge From CNN: Embattled U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has resigned, senior administration officials told CNN Monday. President Bush will likely nominate Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to the position, senior administration officials said. Clay Johnson, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, would replace Chertoff, the officials said. Many lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have long called for his ouster after the firing of several U.S. attorneys in 2006. Bush had long stood by Gonzales. Gonzales will announce his resignation at a news conference at the Justice Department at 10:30 a.m. ET. Now maybe, just maybe, we can go back to impeaching the President?

Big Brother, Inc.

Weekly Original Cartoon Round-Up

CARTOON OF THE WEEK The newest Cartoon of the Week comes from our newest artist, Kelly Ferguson, of Liberal Angst. Every day liberal cartoonists are hard at work, doodling while avoiding their real jobs and responsibilities. Sometimes you see the results, and sometimes you don't. At Left 'Toon Lane we think a cartoon is worth a thousand words, and that sometimes the Bush Administration is so perfectly ironic that only a cartoon can capture the reality. This week six different artists produced fifteen different cartoons about today's politics. I hope you enjoy them, and that you'll come to Left 'Toon Lane, not just for the jokes, but for art and artists to punch up your own blogs and publications. You can see all this week's cartoons, in full size, at Left 'Toon Lane.

Gonzales, The Firewall

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeThat is my theory, Gonzales is the impeachment firewall. If Gonzales is gone, impeachment gets one GIANT step closer to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or the Naval Observatory - depending which strategy you go with. I think Rove knows Bush's ratings be damned, they can't loose Gonzales. Do we think Myers has really that much to say? Maybe. But the longer Rove, et al, prolongs the Congress' misery and investigation, the closer they get to Bush's last day in office - a few more than 500 days are left to go. They just need to hold on and hanging on means not letting Myers testify or Gonzales or any of the other of the king's menagerie. The secondary firewall may be the surge. I wonder these days if the September Report will come back de facto positive in an attempt to split the blue dog Democrats off from the progressives and weaken the party as a whole? Either way, the Summer will wind down, the blood bath in Iraq will worsen, the housing market will still be in freefall and the headlines for the Wall Street Journal will proclaim it is another sunny, beautiful day and all is well in America.

When The Going Gets Weird, The Weird Turn Pro

SCHUMER: I'll let you speak in a minute, but this is serious, because you're getting right close to the edge right here. You just said there was just one program -- just one. So the letter, which was, sort of, intended to deceive, but doesn't directly do so, because there are other intelligence activities, gets you off the hook, but you just put yourself right back on here. GONZALES: I clarified my statement two days later with the reporter. SCHUMER: What did you say to the reporter? GONZALES: I did not speak directly to the reporter. SCHUMER: Oh, wait a second -- you did not. (LAUGHTER) OK. What did your spokesperson say to the reporter? GONZALES: I don't know. But I told the spokesperson to go back and clarify my statement... SCHUMER: Well, wait a minute, sir. Sir, with all due respect -- and if I could have some order here, Mr. Chairman -- in all due respect, you're just saying, "Well, it was clarified with the reporter," and you don't even know what he said. You don't even know what the clarification is. Sir, how can you say that you should stay on as attorney general when we go through exercise like this, where you're bobbing and weaving and ducking to avoid admitting that you deceived the committee? And now you don't even know. I'll give you another chance: You're hanging your hat on the fact that you clarified the statement two days later. You're now telling us that is was a spokesperson who did it. What did that spokesperson say? Tell me now, how do you clarify this? GONZALES: I don't know, but I'll find out and get back to you.

The Full Monica

Pretty. Stupid. Obedient. The perfect Republican woman.

So Who Are the Real Gate Crashers?

The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal. In 2006, Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos and Jerome Armstrong of MyDD published Crashing The Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics. Ostensibly, they advocated for taking over the Democratic Party from inside the beltway K-Street corporate elitists who perpetually sell out their constituents for the almighty dollar. To the extent that ordinary citizens through the blogosphere or progressive “netroots” are more plugged into politics and empowered to become activists is all to the good. Personally, I was an activist before I became a blogger and didn’t need an account with Daily Kos to become one. If the blogosphere ceased to exist tomorrow I would remain involved. I’m sure that’s true for many of us. That said, liberal bloggers have amplified the voice and impact of core progressive values in the ongoing debate-taking place. Whether this amplified voice has the leverage to facilitate transformational progressive change inside the corridors of power remains to be determined. I hope so. Certainly retaking the congress as well as numerous statehouses in 2006 was an important step and the “netroots” were important to that effort. I have my doubts though about the long term and believe “crashing the gate” of a political party is not an elixir for our democracy. Indeed, history is replete with examples of “gate crashers” or “revolutionaries” dethroning the previous order only to become corrupted themselves. As Orwell’s classic Animal Farm illustrated, it didn’t take long for the pigs to resemble Farmer Jones. The real gate to be crashed is as information brokers, fact-checkers and investigative reporters free of corporate influence and dedicated to preserving accountability on the citizenry’s behalf. The foundation for any democratic civil society is truth. Without it a civil society can’t remain civil because the absence of truth translates into a loss of faith in the laws and institutions designed to promote opportunity and justice. Once a citizenry loses faith, either anarchy or oppression isn’t far away. Hence, the importance of a free, independent press doggedly pursuing truth wherever it leads. Truth seekers are gatekeepers of integrity that preserve democracy’s machinery. For example, Carl Bernstein and his partner Bob Woodward, before he became co-opted by the very insiders he used to expose, relentlessly pursued President Richard Nixon’s diabolical efforts to subvert the Constitution. In so doing they helped preserve our democracy’s checks and balances. Congress initiated impeachment proceedings against Nixon and he resigned. The system worked. We’re dependent upon truth seekers to scrutinize the fine print and actions of those in power on our behalf. Since we have our own lives, families and jobs to look after -effectively seeking truth ourselves is a Herculean challenge. Most of us don’t have the resources, ability to travel on demand or cultivate sources among the powerful. Sadly, our country is at best ill served by the so-called free press. When I watched Bill Moyers report how the press covered the lead-up to the Iraq War, I was thunderstruck by their lame justifications for not doing their job. Walter Pincus, a national security reporter for the Washington Post actually admitted to Moyers that since the Reagan Administration, “We stopped truth squading every sort of press conference, or truth squading. And we left it then-- to the democrats. In other words, it's up to the democrats to catch people, not us.” And there was this classic exchange between Moyers and Tim Russert from Meet the Press: BILL MOYERS: What do you make of the fact that of the 414 Iraq stories broadcast on NBC, ABC and CBS nightly news, from September 2002 until February 2003, almost all the stories could be traced back to sources from the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department? TIM RUSSERT: It's important that you have a-- an oppos-- opposition party. That's our system of government. BILL MOYERS: So, it's not news unless there's somebody- TIM RUSSERT: No, no, no. I didn't say that. But it's important to have an opposition party, your opposit-- opposing views. How the hell does any reporter justify allowing a political party to interpret the truth? Political parties are not about truth. Political parties are self-serving entities dedicated to obtaining and maintaining power. Since the Democrats were spineless and didn’t provide an alternative dialogue, Pincus and Russert believe they should be excused from doing their jobs? Ridiculous. Yes, Republicans were feculent and irresponsible while Democrats were feckless and cowardly. All the more reason for the press to do their job and relentlessly pursue the truth. I’m a loyal Democrat and support my party as a means to advance progressive causes I believe in. And Democrats such as Henry Waxman are doing a splendid job of investigating the Bush Administration’s malfeasance now that they have the majority. It was also oversight by the Democratic controlled Senate Judiciary Committee that resulted in former Deputy Attorney General James Comey’s dramatic testimony. Nevertheless, I don’t want the press to solely cede ground to Democrats about holding the Bush White House accountable. Nor do I want the press to curry favor with powerful Democrats and refrain from reporting on their transgressions. Of course reporters such as Pincus and Russert merely reflect the will of their corporate bosses who curry favor from the powerful. Some reporters remain dedicated to their craft. James Risen of the New York Times, who first reported about the Bush Administration’s domestic surveillance program in violation of the FISA framework is a fine example. However, the New York Times management didn’t allow the story to surface prior to the 2004 election. As I see it, the real gate being crashed is what people like Josh Marshall are doing at Talking Points Memo. It was reporting done for that blog that broke the bough on how the dismissal of US Attorney’s were covered and exposed Attorney General Gonazales as a liar. And citizen contributors to Firedoglake were so effective as information repositories for the Scooter Libby trial that even mainstream press reporters relied on them for real time facts. Epluribus Media has also become an effective vehicle for citizen journalism. Another example on a smaller scale is a good friend of mine who used to work for Kaiser Permanente, a health organization that claims to be a non-profit. She was a whistle blower and they responded by personally trying to destroy her. So she transformed her Corporate Ethics blog into a repository of information regarding Kaiser’s harmful activities against their patients. Kaiser Thrive Permanente Exposed is another weblog devoted to serving the public by exhaustively covering Kaiser in a manner that the corporate media has resisted. As the blogosphere continues to mature, it is the gate crashing of citizen journalists that has me the most excited. Hopefully citizen journalism from the “reality based community” will become more adept at keeping the corporate media, corporations and politicians honest. My optimism however is tempered by two concerns. One is that the powerful elites among the corporations, mainstream press and politicians will pass laws that undermine the effectiveness of online citizen journalism. My second fear is that citizen journalists will at some point resemble Farmer Jones.

Gonzo

Wow. Poor Alberto’s performance was pretty ghastly, wasn’t it? The great American humorist Will Rogers once said, “Hey, stupidity got us into this mess, why can’t it get us out?” I don’t know, maybe the overwhelmed and under-prepared Attorney General thought that playing dumb would work. Why not? It got him the job in the first place, didn’t it? Which probably explains why the creepy little toad looked so confused when his angry, hard-eyed inquisitors weren’t putting up with his lies, half-truths, amnesia, and limp denials this time. They didn’t want to hear his bullshit. “Jesus,” I thought to myself when it was finally, mercifully, over. “This punk almost got elected to the Supreme Court.” Man, talk about dodging a bullet. But then, Alito and Roberts make up for it, huh?

Gonzales Caliente Tequila!

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