March 12, 2007 6:50 AM

Remember democracy? Remember civil liberties? I love my country, but I fear my government.

Sen. Schumer Calls For Alberto Gonzales To Resign

Sen. Schumer says Gonzales should go

The Failed Attorney General

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate’s No. 3 Democrat said Sunday that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should resign because he is putting politics above the law. Sen. Charles Schumer cited the FBI’s illegal snooping into people’s private lives and the Justice Department’s firing of federal prosecutors. Schumer, D-New York, said Gonzales repeatedly has shown more allegiance to President Bush than to citizens’ legal rights since taking his job in early 2005. He branded Gonzales, a former White House counsel, as one of the most political attorney generals in recent history….”Attorney General Gonzales is a nice man, but he either doesn’t accept or doesn’t understand that he is no longer just the president’s lawyer, but has a higher obligation to the rule of law and the Constitution even when the president should not want it to be so,” Schumer said….”And so this department has been so political that I think for the sake of the nation, Attorney General Gonzales should step down,” he said.

In the past, I’ve generally written off Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as a grandstanding blowhard. While he may well too often be just that, in this case Schumer’s hit the nail on the head. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has presided over a degradation of American civil liberties that is truly alarming at best and downright dangerous at worst.

Gonzales, who began as and continues to be consigliere to Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © , continues to conduct a policy that has gradually but inexorably nibbled away at our civil liberties. Dictatorships rarely grow out of broad, large-scale coups. No, dictatorships are normally created over time by tinkering around the margins. Curtail a right here, remove a liberty there…and before you know it, you’re getting-state sanctioned news and being monitored by the state security apparatus. Don’t think it can happen here? Well, if you weren’t paying attention last week, you might be surprised when you find yourself smack in the middle of an American police state before you know what hit you.

Yeah, it could happen here…and one could construct a convincing argument for the reality that it already is.

So who says the terrorists haven’t won??

First, there was Mr. Gonzales’s lame op-ed article in USA Today trying to defend the obviously politically motivated firing of eight United States attorneys, which he dismissed as an “overblown personnel matter.” Then his inspector general exposed the way the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been abusing yet another unnecessary new power that Mr. Gonzales helped wring out of the Republican-dominated Congress in the name of fighting terrorism.

The F.B.I. has been using powers it obtained under the Patriot Act to get financial, business and telephone records of Americans by issuing tens of thousands of “national security letters,” a euphemism for warrants that are issued without any judicial review or avenue of appeal. The administration said that, as with many powers it has arrogated since the 9/11 attacks, this radical change was essential to fast and nimble antiterrorism efforts, and it promised to police the use of the letters carefully.

But like so many of the administration’s promises, this one evaporated before the ink on those letters could dry. The F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller, admitted Friday that his agency had used the new powers improperly.

Mr. Gonzales does not directly run the F.B.I., but it is part of his department and has clearly gotten the message that promises (and civil rights) are meant to be broken.

It was Mr. Gonzales, after all, who repeatedly defended Mr. Bush’s decision to authorize warrantless eavesdropping on Americans’ international calls and e-mail. He was an eager public champion of the absurd notion that as commander in chief during a time of war, Mr. Bush can ignore laws that he thinks get in his way. Mr. Gonzales was disdainful of any attempt by Congress to examine the spying program, let alone control it.

The attorney general helped formulate and later defended the policies that repudiated the Geneva Conventions in the war against terror, and that sanctioned the use of kidnapping, secret detentions, abuse and torture. He has been central to the administration’s assault on the courts, which he recently said had no right to judge national security policies, and on the constitutional separation of powers.

Yes, there is a war against terrorism that our government is busily prosecuting. That fact should not provide an excuse for the types of documented (and Lord only knows how many undocumented) abuses that have been occurring since 9.11. If you accept the premise that the war on terror is a war to protect our freedom and Our Way of Life © , then we are being victimized by our own government. The White House and the Justice Department have deemed it necessary to kill the patient in order to save it. If this doesn’t provide a crystal-clear example of the criminality inherent in our government’s conduct of the war on terror, I don’t know what does.

Let’s consider again just what the FBI has been up to:

The F.B.I. has been using powers it obtained under the Patriot Act to get financial, business and telephone records of Americans by issuing tens of thousands of “national security letters,” a euphemism for warrants that are issued without any judicial review or avenue of appeal. The administration said that, as with many powers it has arrogated since the 9/11 attacks, this radical change was essential to fast and nimble antiterrorism efforts, and it promised to police the use of the letters carefully.

“It promised to police the use of the letters carefully….” Let that phrase rattle around your skull for a bit. The FBI, charged with enforcing the law and catching those who break it, have themselves been busily breaking the law in the name of anti-terrorism. And now we’re supposed to believe that they’ve “come to Jesus”, they’ve seen the light and recognized the error of their ways…and they won’t do it again. Honest. Cross my heart and hope to die. Whatever….

And you wonder why I’m angry and cynical? We cannot even trust our own government to respect the laws they’re charged with enforcing. Alberto Gonzales is certainly not directly responsible for all of the egregious abuses that have occurred during his time in office, but he’s done a damn poor job of doing his job…and for that he should at least have the decency to resign. If he cannot see his way clear to resign, he should be fired…yeah, like THAT’S going to happen….

STILL GLAD YOU VOTED REPUBLICAN??

blog comments powered by Disqus

Technorati

Technorati search

» Blogs that link here

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on March 12, 2007 6:50 AM.

...or at least until I can turn this clusterf--k over to the next President was the previous entry in this blog.

Backrubs and nude hot oil massages are optional...but appreciated is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Contact Me

Powered by Movable Type 5.12