Sign the petition to support Senator Leahy's Truth and Reconciliation Commission

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as a country, we desperately need to do this... unless we squarely face what we as a nation have allowed to take place in our names, we stand little chance of ever regaining our national integrity and resetting our moral compass...

senator leahy...

With over 35,000 signatures to date, our petition at BushTruthCommission.com is rapidly building grassroots support for a commission that will uncover the truth about Bush-Cheney Administration abuses. I am humbled that so many Americans have stood up in support of establishing a truth and reconciliation commission, and grateful that our efforts have led the press, outside groups, my Congressional colleagues, and the White House to start taking this idea seriously.

We need to continue to show that the American people are committed to uncovering the truth about the misdeeds of the last administration -- so that we can ensure the same mistakes are not repeated.

As one of the earliest signers of the BushTruthCommission.com petition, I need your help to gather 50,000 petition signatures by next week. Please invite your friends and family to add their names to the petition today.

What little we know about the Bush-Cheney Administration's use of extraordinary rendition, torture, and secret legal memos to subvert the Constitution underscores the need for an independent inquiry.

When I first came to the Senate in 1975, the Church Committee was working to expose the excesses of the Watergate era. Last weekend's New York Times credited that effort with "[leading] directly to a series of reforms" curbing executive power and restoring the Constitution.

The time for asking questions and getting answers has come once again. In the words of Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr., who served as chief counsel for the Church Committee and supports a new truth commission, "It may seem that we already know a lot, but based on my experience, I'm certain there's a lot that went on the last eight years that we still don't know."

Americans embrace this notion, with 6 in 10 supporting an investigation into Bush-Cheney Administration abuses. But that popular sentiment alone won't make it so, and we must keep the pressure on to consider establishing a truth and reconciliation commission.

sign it... it may not be the perfect plan but it's better than continuing to bury our heads in the sand...

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Larisa's take on today's goings-on

golly, i sure hope she's right...

I would like to officially welcome you to Watergate. Please buckle up for the festivities of executive abuses and prepare to watch as Rove, in panic mode, begins to throw people under the bus - who in turn, along with so many other enemies made already, will reveal much more than anyone thought to even look at.

As a chess player, who once had a more than average ranking (if I do say so myself), this was exactly the move that Congress wanted and why it waited until it became undeniably clear that the White House was not remotely interested in protecting the integrity of private council, but rather, protecting its own hide and covering possible crimes. The White House taking this position on attorney-gate is the trap. It is one thing to claim EP [executive privilege] when talking about national security documents, but with attorney-gate, their position has rendered them with no legal or arguably Constitutional leg to stand on.

It would have been far easier to throw Rove and Miers to the curb. Such a move would have been seen as a major effort on the part of the White House to work with Congress. By bringing out the big argument, the only argument, that the White House has in defense of these two - Rove and Miers - they have lost the center of the board - or in non-chess terms, they have lost the advantage and likely, they will lose the game.

Karl Rove, however, will not remain loyal if his own ass is on the line - which it is. Mark my words, protecting Rove and Miers by bringing out the only argument the administration can make (instead of holding it for issues such as the wiretapping program) is not only a bad move, it is a mistake of serious and likely game-ending proportions.

larisa is one of the more astute observers on the scene besides being a crack investigative reporter... i wouldn't dismiss anything she has to say out of hand...

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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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"[T]he refusal to impeach would be a decision as momentous as impeachment itself."

kagro x offers this may 1974 quote from arthur schlesinger...

[T]he refusal to impeach would be a decision as momentous as impeachment itself. It would and could be interpreted only as meaning that Congress does not think [the President] has done anything to warrant impeachment. It would alter the historic relationship of Presidential power to the constitutional system of accountability for the use of that power. The message our generation would send to posterity would be that [the President], whatever his other disasters, had conceived and established a new conception of Presidential accountability, and that his successors, so long as they take care to avoid the crudities of a Watergate burglary, can expect to inherent [the President's] conception of inherent Presidential authority and to wield the unshared power with which he will have endowed the Presidency. Failure to impeach would be a vindication of a revolutionary theory of Presidential accountability.

as i've said ad nauseam, it isn't about impeachment per se, it's about getting those criminals OUT OF OFFICE in the most expeditious manner possible before they do any more damage, which they're continuing to do as we sit here, glued to our computer screens...

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According to Holtzman, Bush is keeping Gonzales to cover his ass

go-l-l-lee, who woulda thunk it...?

Former Democratic Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, who sat on the House Judiciary Committee that investigated Nixon prior to his resignation, says President Bush may be sticking with embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to avoid a confirmation hearing for his replacement.

well, duh...

but, wait, there's more...

Holtzman said the Senate could use confirmation hearings to investigate whether administration officials miscarried justice in firing US Attorneys on what Democrats say was largely political ground. Those hearings would serve the same role as the Watergate-era special prosecutor's investigation, Holtzman says, adding that the Senate "also might use the opportunity to probe the Justice Department's role in mistreatment of detainees, four years of flouting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and other serious matters."

a-HA...! i've been saying all along that gonzo is part of george's firewall and have speculated repeatedly that, if he were removed, a large chunk of that firewall would be gone, leading to god-knows-how-many new revelations... looks like george is indeed feeling a draft blowing up his dress...

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