As the Gonzales no-confidence vote approaches, think of this: "Words seem inadequate in the face of such blithe noncompetence"

strong stuff...

Dan Metcalfe says he thought he had seen it all as a former senior Justice Department lawyer whose career stretches back to the Watergate scandal of the Nixon administration.

Over the years, Metcalfe says, he has taken pride in being able to work with Republican and Democratic administrations as director of the department's Office of Information and Privacy, which he co-founded in 1981.

But he says he has never seen anything quite like Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.

Metcalfe, 55, retired in early January, just before the storm erupted over the dismissal last year of nine U.S. attorneys. The House and Senate Judiciary committees are investigating whether the prosecutors were fired in order to squelch political investigations against Republicans or failing to aggressively pursue voter fraud charges against Democratic-leaning groups.

In an interview, Metcalfe said, "I think the way in which the firings themselves were handled was abominable, the way in which the ensuing controversy was handled was abysmal, and the way in which Gonzales has handled himself is absolutely appalling."

"As a long-term Justice Department official, I am embarrassed and increasingly incensed that he is still in there," he said.

[...]

Sheer political expediency, avoidance of individual responsibility, defensive personal aggrandizement, irresponsible "consensus" decision-making, disregard for long-standing practices and principles — it was all there, and it was tainted at most every turn by unprecedented White House involvement.

[...]

To put it mildly, it's hard to imagine that anyone but the most die-hard political appointees at the Justice Department would have any confidence in Gonzales today — and even that small amount of support would be based on blind loyalty rather than painful reality.

[...]

It is the arrogance of power, the palpable disdain for the rule of law, and the utter disregard for the Justice Department's integrity that brings this so very close to the Watergate era.

[...]

Gonzales has now shown himself to be so lacking as to defy complete description; words seem inadequate in the face of such blithe noncompetence. Suffice to say that his standing relative to other attorneys general comports with how this president compares with his own predecessors.

it's difficult for me to comprehend a former senior doj official making statements like that and not having them set the country on fire... it shows just how effectively we've been dumbed down and how much we prefer our narcotic consumer pleasures to the responsibilities of citizenship... we're behaving just like congress, sticking our heads in the sand and hoping it all blows over soon...

i'll repeat what i said earlier... the r's are going to stick by bush and vote against the no-confidence measure, it will fail, bush and gonzo will congratulate themselves for pulling off another one, the dems will put their tails between their legs, continue with their various hearings, and warm themselves with fantasies of what they could be with a little more testosterone... but it's like the little dutch boy, sticking his finger in the dike, trying to hold back the sea - when it goes, it's going to go in a rush...

the r's know, if they abandon george now, the dike will most definitely give way, and they'll be standing right there, dead center, watching an oncoming wall of water... it's the classic rock and a hard place dilemma... there's only one thing left to do, and that's for congress to re-assert - aggressively re-assert - its role as a separate but equal power under the constitution, whatever form that may take... the crisis is upon us, and, even though congress is wishing mightily for it to go away, it's not going to... it's time to stand up and fight...

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