Facing the music

My brother - a lifelong Republican who despises the current president because "he's not a real conservative" - told me after the last election that while he was glad the Dems won, he hoped they weren't going to waste time just going after old scandals. I guess he's happy to realize that they aren't going to have any free time to do that - the new scandals just keep coming in.

Take Alberto Gonzales and the fired prosecutors. (And let me first lay to rest the whole "Clinton fired more!!!" 'defence'" - every president puts in new prosecutors when he takes over. Most presidents fire one or two along the way. No president mass-replaces them for "loyalty" three quarters of the way through - well, none but this one.)

I love the NYT's description of Al: consigliere to the Bush White House. When he was White House counsel, that was (sort of) his actual job, and he did it zealously, as he has always served Bush zealously even back in Texas, making sure he got out of jury duty so his DWIs wouldn't come up and helping him set a record number of executions and equally record number of dismissed clemencies, and has been rewarded for his loyalty by jobs such as Texas Secretary of State and Supreme Court Justice, and then when his boss moved to DC, he ended up as White House counsel. It's almost understandable that Gonzales wrote opinions for the White House justifying limitations on the Freedom of Information Act, warrantless wiretapping, torture, tribunals, renditions, and all the other "controversial" decisions this White House has made. His service was the ultimate lawyerly reward of Attorney General. (Considering that Miers was nominated for the Supreme Court of the United States, can anyone doubt that Gonzales was destined for the next empty slot - a final Bush legacy to the nation? That one wouldn't fly now; it's an ill wind indeed that blows no good at all.)

But the Attorney General isn't supposed to be the White House counsel. He's not supposed to get involved in the petty partisan politics that encompass such things as firing US attorneys - whose performance appraisals have been good - for the sins of not being "loyal Bushies" and not using their office to intimidate the other party.

If they really want to start digging into this, there's that whole and central question of what did Karl Rove do and when did he do it?.

And if that's not enough to keep them busy, they can tackle the FBI's violations of the law to obtain telephone records - "flawed" letters demanding information that had no proven relationship to counterterrorist investigations. Or the "problems" at Walter Reed, apparently only the tip of the VA iceberg. Or the military's ongoing lowering of enlistment standards as it tries to keep its numbers up to the tasks set before it (though, while "moral waivers" are granted to felons and the mentally disturbed, gays still need not apply). Or the friction developing in the special relationship between the US and the UK - exemplified by the "criminal" friendly-fire death of a British soldier and the subsequent handling of the incident. And the beat, as they say, goes on.

I could go on, but you get the picture. Nobody has to go back to 2000 to start whacking this administration with subpoenas. It's probably not making my brother happy, but me? I've got a smile on my face.