The Nyaah-Nyaah-Neh-Nyaah-Nyaah Defense
by tristero
Updated below
Kevin Drum's exactly right: In Thursday's testimony, Gonzales made it clear that he just doesn't care what anyone thinks. After all, if Democrats don't like it, what are they going to do? Roll their eyes at him?
Yep.
I think when we see Gonzales testify, all we're seeing is the unclean rump of a dog with stomach cancer. Sooner or later, it will start to howl in pain. My guess, though, is that while Gonzales is already a major pain in the ass to defend, he's sticking around. He won't go until the most politically expedient moment, ie when the campaign for '08 gets really serious and his resigning will ease off pressure on something else.*
That is, Gonzales will go - yes, I sincerely doubt he will stay until Bush leaves - when it helps the Republicans the most. And he knows it, certainly. The only question is whether Democrats are prepared to preempt Republicans and perform some major exploratory surgery on the Justice Department. If so, exposing the sheer extent of the cancer will make Gonzales' resignation happen on their schedule. Not the GOP's.
But when this blows up, man...It won't be pretty. Even for those of us who see no moral problem with schadenfreude when it comes to rejoicing at the comeuppance of the Bushies and the rest of the rightwing, what Gonzales has done to Justice will be so unbearably awful to behold, whatever glee we might feel will be tempered by anger that he was permitted to stay as long as he did.
[UPDATE: I normally don't pass on rumors - it's more effective to indict the Bush administration from reporting in the mainstream press, I think - but this is the kind of ugly stuff that I think will start streaming out of Justice:Because of the recent oversight given to the Executive Branch, we now know that the Justice Department has circumvented the legal process and issued tens of thousands of 'national security letters.' These documents allow DOJ/FBI to forego getting a Judge's approval for a subpoena. In other words, it allows bureaucrats to violate the Constitutional rights with no Judicial oversight. It is also done in secret.
But, there are indications that national security letters were issued in these campaign finance investigations. It is possible that this Justice Department abused the law to go on a crusade to investigate Democratic donors. So far, the Government has been unwilling to provide an answer to the question of whether or not this is true.]
*This, of course, is the cue for Gonzales to resign tomorrow, which would make me eat these words and not hear the end of it from commenters for the next twenty years or so. And y'know something, dear friends? If I'm wrong and Gonzales doesn't stay but resigns tomorrow, I'll gladly eat these words.