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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (223547)	3/11/2007 3:09:44 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The Failed Attorney General ______________________________________________________________ Lead Editorial The New York Times March 11, 2007 During the hearing on his nomination as attorney general, Alberto Gonzales said he understood the difference between the job he held — President Bush’s in-house lawyer — and the job he wanted, which was to represent all Americans as their chief law enforcement officer and a key defender of the Constitution. Two years later, it is obvious Mr. Gonzales does not have a clue about the difference. He has never stopped being consigliere to Mr. Bush’s imperial presidency. If anyone, outside Mr. Bush’s rapidly shrinking circle of enablers, still had doubts about that, the events of last week should have erased them. 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. His Justice Department has abandoned its duties as guardian of election integrity and voting rights. It approved a Georgia photo-ID law that a federal judge later likened to a poll tax, a case in which Mr. Gonzales’s political team overrode the objections of the department’s professional staff. The Justice Department has been shamefully indifferent to complaints of voter suppression aimed at minority voters. But it has managed to find the time to sue a group of black political leaders in Mississippi for discriminating against white voters. We opposed Mr. Gonzales’s nomination as attorney general. His résumé was weak, centered around producing legal briefs for Mr. Bush that assured him that the law said what he wanted it to say. More than anyone in the administration, except perhaps Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr. Gonzales symbolizes Mr. Bush’s disdain for the separation of powers, civil liberties and the rule of law. On Thursday, Senator Arlen Specter, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, hinted very obliquely that perhaps Mr. Gonzales’s time was up. We’re not going to be oblique. Mr. Bush should dismiss Mr. Gonzales and finally appoint an attorney general who will use the job to enforce the law and defend the Constitution.

To: epicure who wrote (223547)	3/11/2007 11:52:00 AM
From: Suma	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

There were many students in school who never actively did anything wrong. However, they were always something about them that turned teacher's off... They would often challenge a teacher with WHAT DID I DO WRONG ? I never quite grasp how to describe what it was until I watched a TV program about Performing Arts High School in the City. Then the word ATTITUDE was used to describe students who were covertly disrespectful... There was this Black teacher who used to explain why someone hadn't attained the level of being selected for a performance. Hey, how come I didn't get that role I was as good as that person ...a student would ask. The teacher would respond . It's you attitude... It wasn't what the student said out loud. It was the insidious undermining that went on with tongue in the cheek responses, smirks ... nothing tangible... Always sub rosa but the attitude was there..That was the only word that seemingly described it. Persons post on various threads not only with researched information but with attitude...There's always that snide jab or remark that is a red flag in front of the bull. Personally I like dealing on a straight out response to questions put to me on the sites when I am able. Unfortunately there are many days when my eyes do not permit me to do a lot of researching on that Advanced Search tool as I have to save them to last me to do my book reading at night.. So, I am not up for debating, conflagrations or trying to prove that I am right here or on any other thread. And I am often wrong. And I don't pretend to have all the answers.. ETC My posting has all ready gotten me labeled as a leftist.. I hate labels. I believe that a person's ideas,feelings and persuasions,regardless cannot be lumped under one label. Just like our personalities we are a composite of many differing characteristics.. However, if one repeatedly denigrates any another person I am offended.. It strikes a cord that says we are here to be nasty to one another instead of trying to share differing opinions and stances..I don't believe that anyone of us will change anyone else's mind here. So why do we persist. For me it's trying to illuminate.. To offer a broader picture. Example. Sure Libby will be exonerated..pardoned.. But he did lie under oath. That is his crime. That was Clinton's crime. It wasn't that he didn't have sex.. It was he lied under oath. How is Libby any different ? I am open to explanations. My turning point on our President is when he lied to us. I do not have friends who lie. I detest lying. To see the outcome of this lie ultimately has done to our country is very sad for me. I defended Bill Clinton because I thought he was not only misunderstood but that he was constantly under pressure from right wing sources that . that were ready to lie about him.. Newt Gingrich used to talk to my brother and say one could not believe anything out of Clinton's mouth. With an attitude like his.........what could be accomplished in any viable exchanges between the two.. ? Then, I learn that while lecturing against Clinton's infidelities Gingrich himself is having an affair. This is hypocrisy at it's highest. I turned off to Gingrich. He has a brilliant mind but he is not to be trusted. It's just too bad that there is always this need to try to prove another person wrong with ATTITUDE that is less than constructive and often more inflammatory. I recoil from these challenges and become passive. That is why I often will not respond to posts that want to go at it with me. I admire those of you who can be challenged and go at it back and forth. I do not come here for that. I am interested in what everyone posts here. EVERYONE. And I go to other threads where there is reasonable debate and PFP does have a lot of REASONABLE posts.. Where I find "ATTITUDES"... pejorative statements and no levity at all except poking jibes at another person and their posts I leave. Life is too short and in the end... It's all hyperbole, rhetoric and the same o same o isn't it ? Sometimes I find it amusing that we are all Americans who in the case of 9/11 come together in one true common cause.

To: epicure who wrote (223547)	3/11/2007 12:26:03 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Would you like the links provided that prove that "manners" is certainly not a word that applies to you? You know I've got them. If you have such great manners, why did you persist in posting to RCG AFTER he repeatedly asked you to stop? And that is relatively recent and you know it. You persisted until I gave you a dose of your own medicine. And before that you said you would NEVER do exactly what you did to RCG. Is it like your statement that you would never report anyone to Admin- -and then did just that to jlallen? You championed Poet- -until you noticed that Bill, jlallen, and I also were. THEN you switched sides and justice be ****ed. You are hardly an example of "manners". That seperates you from Suma. In my experience, she is.