Bush Will Fight Subpoenas

[red states rule]

Pres Bush VS the Dems. It looks like the Dems are more interested in attacking the administartion then trying to solve the nations issues.


Bush to fight Democratic subpoenas
By Jon Ward
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

President Bush yesterday warned congressional Democrats that he would "oppose any attempt" to subpoena White House officials involved in the firing of eight federal prosecutors last year.
"We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants," Mr. Bush said during a hastily arranged press conference at the White House after returning from a daylong trip to Kansas and Missouri.
The president said he still has confidence in embattled Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, a longtime ally, whose chief of staff resigned last week over the imbroglio.
"I support the attorney general," Mr. Bush said.
Democratic leaders -- confounded and angered after an afternoon meeting with White House Counsel Fred F. Fielding -- responded to the president's warning with defiant vows to press ahead with subpoenas.
"The [Senate] Judiciary Committee ... will follow this investigation where it leads. We have an obligation -- far above party, far above partisanship -- to our country and its system of justice," Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said on Senate floor. "We will not be deterred. ... The truth will come out."
Mr. Schumer said the committee "will move forward" tomorrow, as scheduled, to authorize subpoenas for presidential adviser Karl Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers.
Once subpoenas are authorized, committee Chairman Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, can issue them at any time, in consultation with the ranking Republican member of the committee, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Fielding offered Democrats a chance to interview Mr. Rove and Miss Miers -- but in private, without a transcript and not under oath.
Mr. Specter said last night that he might be content with the president's proposal.
"I would prefer to have the interviews in public, but it is more important to get the information promptly than to have months or years of litigation," Mr. Specter said. "If we are dissatisfied with the information provided in the manner offered by the president, we can always issue subpoenas."
After the meeting with Mr. Fielding, Mr. Schumer called the White House proposal a "clever" move.

"It's sort of giving us an opportunity to talk to them, but not giving us the opportunity to get to the bottom of what really happened here."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Mr. Rove should testify under oath.
"If Karl Rove plans to tell the truth, he has nothing to fear from being under oath like any other witness," said Mr. Reid, Nevada Democrat.
Mr. Bush said he wants to preserve his staff's ability to give "candid advice."
"If the staff of a president operated in constant fear of being called before various committees, to discuss internal deliberations, the president would not receive candid advice, and the American people would be ill-served," he said.
The Senate also yesterday voted 94-2 to strip the attorney general of a recently created power to appoint interim U.S. attorneys, saying Mr. Gonzales had abused the statute, which was part of the 2006 USA Patriot Act renewal.
Republicans Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Christopher S. Bond of Missouri opposed the measure.
Democrats, and some Republicans, want to find out whether the White House dismissed the federal prosecutors to derail corruption probes into Republican lawmakers.
Mr. Bush said that there was "no indication that anybody did anything improper" and that Democrats needed to read the roughly 3,000 pages of e-mails, memos and other documents released by the Justice Department on Monday night and yesterday.
The Washington Times reviewed the 939 pages of documents released Monday night. The documents gave an overall negative view -- one not previously disclosed in public -- of seven of the eight dismissed prosecutors.
Scathing criticisms of each of the dismissed prosecutors, save one, were included in the communications. White House spokesman Tony Snow said the documents showed that the attorneys were fired for performance-based reasons, not for "partisan recrimination."
Support for Mr. Gonzales among Capitol Hill Republicans is mixed. Several Republicans, including Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican and longtime critic of the Justice Department, said yesterday that there is no reason why Mr. Gonzales should resign.
"This is a big hoopla," Mr. Lott said. "He didn't do anything illegal. He didn't do anything improper."
However, Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican, joined the handful of Republicans who have called on Mr. Gonzales to resign.
c Christina Bellantoni and S.A. Miller contributed to this article.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20070321-120655-7099r.htm

 

[red states rule]

Another example of the "unbiased" liberal media


Salivating Washington Press Corps: 'Does This Bring Back Memories of Watergate?'
Posted by Brent Baker on March 20, 2007 - 21:41.
Some journalists are starting to project parallels between the media-fueled controversy over the Bush administration replacing eight of 93 U.S. attorneys and Watergate, what many reporters see as their glory days of the early 1970s. A brief video snippet in David Gregory's story on Tuesday's NBC Nightly News showed Fred Fielding, Chief Counsel in the Bush White House who worked in the counsel's office during the Nixon administration, walking down a Capitol Hill hallway as a male voice off-camera, presumably a reporter, asked: “Does this bring back memories of Watergate?” NBC didn't play Fielding's reply. And that most likely took place before President Bush's address at 5:50pm EDT in which he promised to turn over more documents, have Justice officials testify before Congress and to allow Senators to interview Harriet Miers and Karl Rove.

Bush's offer only antagonized a couple of media figures. On MSNBC's Countdown, Keith Olbermann proposed that “the President sounded awfully like President Nixon during Watergate.” Newsweek Senior Editor Jonathan Alter readily agreed: “That is a great point. You know if you go into executive privilege land, you do take us on a kind of a return trip to Watergate.”

Earlier, Alter reminded viewers of the special “bond” between Bush and Gonzales: “Remember that it was Gonzales who saved Bush's career when he was called for jury duty as Governor of Texas. Gonzales used a technicality to avoid public disclosure of Bush's arrest for drunk driving.”

The Watergate exchange on the March 20 Countdown:


Keith Olbermann: “This statement he made tonight upon returning to Washington, talking about free exchange of ideas being thwarted, being quashed inside a White House. He sounded, the President sounded awfully like President Nixon during Watergate and I can't be the only one to have made that comparison. Is that really a comparison he wants to invoke if the subpoenas come? Would it not be better to blink than look like you're covering up -- especially when it may be covering up makes this look bigger, perhaps, than it really is?”

Jonathan Alter: “That is a great point. You know if you go into executive privilege land, you do take us on a kind of a return trip to Watergate. Look, this idea that somehow presidential aides don't have to go up and testify under oath on Capitol Hill -- this is a very modern and really Nixonian notion. If you go back, say, to the 1930s, Franklin Roosevelt's top aide Louie Howe, there were irregularities in the New Deal Congress wanted to know about, they called him up on Capitol Hill, a Democratic Congress interestingly, they grilled him. There wasn't even the slightest suggestion that somehow he shouldn't be required to testify. So this is a new idea. It will be shades of Watergate if they want to go to court to test it.”

http://newsbusters.org/node/11548

 

[red states rule]

The Phoniest Scandal of the Century (So Far)
By Dick Morris

When will the Bush administration grow some guts? Except for its resolute — read: stubborn — position on Iraq, the White House seems incapable of standing up for itself and battling for its point of view. The Democratic assault on the administration over the dismissal of United States attorneys is the most fabricated and phony of scandals, but the Bush people offer only craven apologies, half-hearted defenses, and concessions. Instead, they should stand up to the Democrats and defend the conduct of their own Justice Department.

There is no question that the attorney general and the president can dismiss United States attorneys at any time and for any reason. We do not have civil servant U.S. attorneys but maintain the process of presidential appointment for a very good reason: We consider who prosecutes whom and for what to be a question of public policy that should reflect the president’s priorities and objectives. When a U.S. attorney chooses to go light in prosecuting voter fraud and political corruption, it is completely understandable and totally legitimate for a president and an attorney general to decide to fire him or her and appoint a replacement who will do so.

The Democratic attempt to attack Bush for exercising his presidential power to dismiss employees who serve at his pleasure smacks of nothing so much as the trumped-up grounds for the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in 1868. Back then, radical Republicans tried to oust him for failing to obey the Tenure of Office Act, which they passed, barring him from firing members of his Cabinet (in this case, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton) without Senate approval. Soon after Johnson’s acquittal, the Supreme Court invalidated the Tenure of Office Act, in effect affirming Johnson’s position.

But instead of loudly asserting its view that voter fraud is, indeed, worthy of prosecution and that U.S. attorneys who treat such cases lightly need to go find new jobs, the Bush administration acts, for all the world, like the kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. All Republican supporters of the administration can do is to point to Bill Clinton’s replacement of U.S. attorneys when he took office. Because the president and the attorney general insist on acting guilty, the rest of the country has no difficulty in assuming that they are.

Bush, Rove, Gonzales and Co. should explain why the U.S. attorneys were dismissed by emphasizing the importance of the cases they were refusing to prosecute. By doing so, they can turn the Democratic attacks on them into demands to go easy on fraudulent voting. A good sense of public relations — and some courage — could turn this issue against the Democrats for blocking Bush’s efforts to crack down on the criminals he wanted prosecuted.

In making such a big deal over the routine exercise of a presidential prerogative to fire these prosecutors, the Democrats, led by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) may be biting off more than they can chew. Unless the administration turns and aggressively defends its decision to get rid of these particular appointees, it could be left holding the bag and defending the U.S. attorneys’ decision to avoid prosecuting voter-fraud cases.

If the administration continues to follow its run-and-hide policy, it will look terrible asserting claims of executive privilege as it seeks to shield its appointees from Senate interrogation and its documents from committee scrutiny. But if it contextualizes the issue by using the specific failings of the dismissed appointees to prosecute particular cases, it will assume the high ground and its procedural objections will be seen in a more positive light by the American people. If only the administration would show some courage.

Morris, a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of “Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race.” To get all of Dick Morris’s and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by email, go to www.dickmorris.com.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/03/the_phoniest_scandal_of_the_ce.html

 

[T-Bor]

Of course he will. Because he doesnt want the truth to get out so he is using the same ol worn out "Witch-hunt" excuse. Its so obvious he is trying to protect these people form having to tell the truth. Of course Rove would never do that anyway.

 

[jasendorf]

Don't want to testify in public and under oath? Then you're obviously guilty of something. Simple as that.

 

[dilloduck]

Don't want to testify in public and under oath? Then you're obviously guilty of something. Simple as that.

Either you are absolutely ignorant to the political games being played here or suffer from a complete lack of understanding of Constitutionally defined powers.

Hell--let's drag every elected official in DC to the stand and have them testify against themselves. If nothing else we can take whatever they say, put the appropriate political spin on it and use it to politically destroy them.

 

[jasendorf]

Either you are absolutely ignorant to the political games being played here or suffer from a complete lack of understanding of Constitutionally defined powers.

Hell--let's drag every elected official in DC to the stand and have them testify against themselves. If nothing else we can take whatever they say, put the appropriate political spin on it and use it to politically destroy them.

The Constitutional powers are quite clear. Only Congress can give away (or take back for that matter) its Constitutional duty to consent and advise on the appointees of the President. It did so in the horribly flawed Patriot Act. The Republican-run Congress of the time made a mistake (or, more likely gave away that power knowing that the Republican administration would use it as a political giveaway program for "loyalists"). The new Congress has decided to exert its Constitutional mandate to oversee the President's appointees.

Why do you hate the Constitution so much?

If they have nothing to hide they'll testify under oath in public.

The Bible has a little something to say about persecution and how it should be addressed:
Matthew 5:11-16

11Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

12Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

13Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

14Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

15Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

16Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

 

[T-Bor]

Heres a quote from T-bor 5:17 - Hang the sons of bitches !!!!!! Can Bush be involved in any more scandals? Worst president EVER !!!!!

The Bible has a little something to say about persecution and how it should be addressed:

 

[red states rule]

Don't want to testify in public and under oath? Then you're obviously guilty of something. Simple as that.

Pres Bush is protecting the US Constitution - something libs ignore whenever they want to

Libs will shape, bend, twist, and shap the Constitution into more positions then a Bill Clinton intern

 

[red states rule]

Of course he will. Because he doesnt want the truth to get out so he is using the same ol worn out "Witch-hunt" excuse. Its so obvious he is trying to protect these people form having to tell the truth. Of course Rove would never do that anyway.

Libs have an obsession with Rove. They hate him simply because he has kicked their ass in so many elections. Rove has only lost two election to the libs, and he plays hardball politics

 

[CSM]

Pres Bush is protecting the US Constitution - something libs ignore whenever they want to

Libs will shape, bend, twist, and shap the Constitution into more positions then a Bill Clinton intern

Silence = guilt???? I missed that piece of the Constitution. Must be a California law.

 

[red states rule]

Silence = guilt???? I missed that piece of the Constitution. Must be a California law.

That part of the US Constitution was written in Liberalville and applies only to Republicans