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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (58423)	4/20/2007 4:22:44 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 90947

Senate Shame Editorial By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Thursday, April 19, 2007 4:20 PM PT U.S. Attorneys: Democrats turned the Senate Judiciary Committee into a circus-like political rally Thursday, complete with chants from costumed demonstrators. Alberto Gonzales was the most sober man in the room. How does "The World's Greatest Deliberative Body" treat the nation's chief law enforcement officer? With his panel breaking for lunch, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy was seen giggling as a departing Attorney General Gonzales was subjected to crowds holding up signs and bellowing "Resign!" in the hearing room. After Gonzales returned for the afternoon session, noisy demonstrators were allowed to roam freely around the room with their placards. At the hearing's final gavel they sang and shouted taunts. Attorney general at center ring. Why didn't Leahy have the Capitol Police clear the room? Why didn't the ranking Republican, the liberal Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, call on Leahy to do so? Or someone on the committee concerned with the Senate's highfalutin reputation? They didn't because that mob demanding Gonzales' scalp is what the hearing was all about. The senators may have worn suits and ties and spoken in softer tones (though not always), but their blood lust for the White House is just as fervent as the extremists who wore orange garb and pink police costumes and had "Arrest Gonzales" duct-taped on their backs. Consider Leahy's nonsensical contention that "the Department of Justice is experiencing a crisis of leadership perhaps unrivaled during its 137-year history." Does he forget Bill Clinton's attorney general, Janet Reno, erecting a wall between the FBI and the CIA that buried vital intelligence that could have exposed the 9/11 plot? The Gonzales inquisition amounted to a colossal waste of time. • The best New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer could do was raise doubt about whether fired U.S. Attorney Carol Lam was told there were issues with her prosecution of immigration cases. Then, with a staged solemnity, Schumer asked Gonzales to resign. • All Leahy could do was pinpoint a date — Oct. 11, 2006 — when the president discussed with Gonzales his concern about a lack of voter-fraud prosecutions by fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias. • The best a grandstanding GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina could serve up was the charge that many of the fired U.S. attorneys "just had personality conflicts with people in your office or the White House and just made up reasons to fire them." Some smoking guns, those. Once again: Under the law, U.S. attorneys are hired and fired by the president; no public or private explanation is needed. There is no scandal. Yet Schumer was gleefully confident that Gonzales' head would roll because GOP senators were "so skeptical" of him. The White House should realize that sacrificing Gonzales won't end Congress' feeding frenzy. It will whet it. ibdeditorials.com