Political Games - Where the fuck’s the reset button?

Really. I mean it this time.

Ok, so a quick round up of what might possibly be the most important story right now. If you haven’t been following this, don’t worry; it’s only one of the latest scandals coming out of the Bush White House. Surprise. You’ll have to find more detailed background elsewhere; basically, Gonzalez fired 7 or 8 or 9 U.S. Attorneys since the 06 elections [which in and of itself is unprecedented], several of whom had been working public corruption cases. Then, using an unknown proviso in the Patriot Act slipped in by a Specter staffer during House-Senate discrepancy committee, replaced them without requiring the Senate’s approval. Oh, and a couple of the replacements suggested were Bush campaign workers/donors. With me so far? Ok, it gets better.

One of the fired claims to have been contacted (at his house!) by Sen. Pete Domenici [R-NM] and Rep. Heather Wilson [R-Big Surprise] just before the 06 elections to ask about a corruption investigation into a state Democrat and pressured him to hurry things up. Wilson barely won reelection in one of the closer races this fall. Another of the attorneys also claims that the chief of staff for another congressperson, Rep. Doc Hastings [R-WA] contacted him as well before the 06 elections to ask something similar. The attorney terminated the conversation before the questions got too pushy, but was unnerved by the whole event.

During Tuesday’s congressional hearing, two of the attorneys confirmed a newspaper report that the Attorney General’s chief of staff threatened one or more of the attorneys that the gloves would come off and more, personal information would come out about them if they continued to stir controversy. The DoJ denies this. Yeah, cause we know this Administration would never do that. Just ask Joe Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame OH MY GOD what have I said?? [/Colbert]

The attorney from NM also recounted a conversation with the DoJ official who made the calls firing them [he resigned a few days ago, btw. Spending more time with his family or something] in which he asked why he was being fired. The official’s reply: “I don’t know and I don’t want to know. All I know is that this came from on high.”

So yeah. This could be one of the biggest scandals of this Administration, and that’s saying something. There are calls for Gonzales to resign, for Bush to fire him, or for Congress to impeach him. I obviously think it’s well-deserved at this point. This whole thing is insane.

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