Now I like this Bush!
A defiant President Bush warned Democrats Tuesday to accept his offer to have top aides testify about the firings of federal prosecutors only privately and not under oath or risk a constitutional showdown from which he would not back down.Democrats’ response to his proposal was swift and firm: They said they would start authorizing subpoenas as soon as Wednesday for the White House aides.
"Testimony should be on the record and under oath. That’s the formula for true accountability," said Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Bush, in a late-afternoon statement at the White House, said, "We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants. … I have proposed a reasonable way to avoid an impasse."
He added that federal prosecutors work for him and it is natural to consider replacing them. "There is no indication that anybody did anything improper," the president said.
Bush gave his embattled attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, a boost during an early morning call and ended the day with a public statement repeating it. "He’s got support with me," Bush said.
Thank you for fighting back against these freakin rats.
And while every single blog I have read, every newspaper, every MSM outfit is calling the dismissal of Gonzales a outright certainty I am laying odds it won’t happen. Bush appears determined and understands that if he loses Gonzales then guess what, he has to nominate a new AG who has to get confirmed by a Democrat controlled congress.
Which means the new AG will be a billion times worse then Gonzales.
Isn’t going to happen.
This whole non-scandal is just another papercut the rats are trying to inflict upon the Republicans to ensure they get into the White House in ’08. That’s it.
Put the Exececutive branch under oath prior to the finding of any "crime." Then shout it out enough with their MSM megaphone and the people think a crime was committed.
Sound familiar?
Ace at his best:
Liberals are now claiming a strange new theory of executive power — that it’s the bureaucrats, the "experts," the permanent government in DC, that have almost all of the actual power in the executive branch, and the President is acting criminally when he presumes that he is the boss of them.
[…]It’s time to go to war with these people. The Democrats, the media, all of them . "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on" should be the operating premise of the administration from this point on, and Bush should begin engaging in the most ruthless of political tit-for-tats, ordering his inferiors to not spend a dime of money for earmarked projects in Democratic districts, etc.
I second that motion!
Oh, and one little tidbit to ponder, Chuckie and company are demanding subpoena’s at the same time that Congress is fighting subpoena’s in a REAL criminal case involving Jefferson. How Interesting.
UPDATE
Check out Dafydd’s post at Big Lizards, it’s a doozy:
So imagine this thought experiment: Suppose that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales subpoenaed Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT, 95%), Chuck Schumer (D-NYC, 100%), Dianne Feinstein (D-San Francisco, 90%), and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Caesar’s Palace, 90%); followed by Reps. John Murtha (D-PA, 65%), Henry Waxman (D-CA, 95%), and Squeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury, 95%). They’re each hauled into an auditorium in the bowels of the Justice Department building, where about 150 print and television reporters await.
JD lawyers administer the oath to each member of Congress separately, then commence grilling them on the inner discussions within committees, caucuses, and even private conversations between senators, representatives, and their aides. Those aides have already been subpoened and extensively questioned; so if a member says anything that differs from what an aide said, the member is threatened with a perjury prosecution.
Would Congress put up with this? Would the courts allow it? I certainly hope not in both cases. But if we rightly recognize that the Executive branch cannot simply force members of the Legislative branch to testify under oath about their private advice, criticisms, and discussions with other members of their branch — how the heck can the Legislative do exactly that to members of the Executive — a supposedly co-equal branch of government?
[…]I have no idea how the Supreme Court will ultimately rule on this… but I predict it will have to, because the Democrats who run the Judiciary Committee (including Schumer, Feinstein, and Chairman Leahy) are assuredly going to issue subpoenas — and the president is just as adamant that he will not allow Rove, Miers, Deputy White House Counsel, William K. Kelley, Special Assistant to the Office of Political Affairs J.Scott Jennings, or any other close aide to testify under oath, where they can be asked anything at all, and in open session… completely obliterating the ability of the president to get candid advice and possibly even endangering national security by straying into discussions of FBI intelligence gathering and NSA surveillance.
If he did, Bush would not just be ceding the right to the 110th Congress; he would be throwing it away for all future presidents versus all future Congresses.
But heck, what’s jettisoning a couple of hundred years of traditional governance and crippling the presidency in perpetuity, as compared to the opportunity of possibly indicting Karl Rove? We must keep things in perspective!
Indeed!
The Supreme Court will be siding with the Executive on this one. If these nimrods think they can have criminal proceedings without any charges being filed, basically a fishing expedition, then they really are the most ignorant people on the planet.
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The President should order the Justice Department to indict every democrat now under investigation. Half of the congression democrats would spend the next two years defending themselves in court. Maybe they wouldn’t have so much time to play the kindergarden childish games they’ve played for two months. Don’t even one of them have brains enough to know the American people are tired of the BS and laughing at the fools.
It funny when two of the biggest criminals , Chuckie and Leaky are leading the charge. Both should already have a felony record and be banned from congress.
Hi Curt!
The reason I think that President Bush is about to haul out the brass knuckles is, he said (unless I misunderstood) that he was prepared to provide documentation of all relevant White House to DOJ correspondence regarding this issue, but also “CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE WHITE HOUSE AND CONGRESS” about this issue. Meaning those who have been busy lodging “complaints” concerning lack of prosecutions on immigration cases or voter fraud…both of which we know are near and dear to the hearts of Dems everywhere. What do you suppose are the odds that therein are landmines for the Dems as well as some turncoat Republicans who have been guilty of the same meddling lately.
It wouldn’t be the first time that Congressmen have felt impowered to tell this President how to do his job and that he MUST ask Congress before he blows his nose in the morning! This warning that he gave them carries the implied threat that he will use this and MORE either in closed hearings or in public and the choice is theirs. Air their dirty laundry in public? Some of the MOSt guilty are screaming the loudest about this. We shall see, I guess, huh?
Carol
“The Supreme Court will be siding with the Executive on this one.”
We can certainly hope that’s true, but then we thought that when the McCain Campaign Financing bill came to them. It was blatantly un-Constitutional, and we all knew it. But the Supremes let it stand. So we will have to pray for them to be far smarter and courageous than they were then!
” It wouldn’t be the first time that Congressmen have felt impowered to tell this President how to do his job and that he MUST ask Congress before he blows his nose in the morning!”
I agree except with these exceptions for the boy president: the Congress needs to tell him HOW to blow his nose, how to play nicely with his friends, and that lying is not right.
Mama Bush seems to have failed to teach her shrub these items among others.