Why a Gonazales resignation is not enough

by Kagro X

Thu Mar 15, 2007 at 06:38:25 AM PDT

It now seems all but inevitable that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will be forced to resign his position over the growing scandal surrounding the political strong-arming of U.S. Attorneys around the country. Resignation, even in supposed disgrace however, is insufficiently punitive to members of an "administration" that has made a practice of employing prominent Republican recidivists left over from what should have been career-ending scandals like Watergate and Iran-Contra.

But resignation as a punishment also fails to fit the crime. You may rest assured that apologists for Gonzales, Bush and Rove (whose involvement also seems obvious) will insist that there is no "crime" here, because the hiring and firing of U.S. Attorneys is within the president's prerogative. True, as far as it goes. But what clearly ought not to be is the political manipulation of federal investigations to bolster the electoral prospects of Republicans, and damage those of Democrats and other rivals. This is the sort of activity that's so obviously and fundamentally wrong that nobody has yet taken the time to devise a statute to address it. Instead, it occupies the space of a general crime against the Constitution, a subversion of our very system of government, and precisely the sort of crime for which the founders gave us the remedy of impeachment. That's what "high crimes and misdemeanors" are all about. It's not about lawbreaking at altitude. LINK