Justice, Come to Order!

By Susanunpc … Today, the House Judiciary Committee will vote “on whether to recommend to the full House that Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten be held in contempt of Congress” for refusing to comply with subpoenas. [UPDATE: "Panel Holds Two Bush Aides in Contempt."] Alberto Gonzales may also be held in contempt.

“It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered,” wrote Aristotle. If so, Alberto Gonzales is a f–king anarchist.

“I believe that justice is instinct and innate; the moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as the threat of feeling, seeing and hearing,” wrote Thomas Jefferson. If so, Alberto Gonzales is blind, deaf, dumb, and unfeeling to a sociopathic extreme.

It’s not often that the cerebral reporter Josh Marshall writes such a frothy, angry headline: “Gonzales to Schumer: Blow Me.” Marshall continues: “It’s a genuinely sad day when you have the chief law enforcement officer of country remaining in office after he’s been publicly and repeatedly shown to be a liar. … [Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy] suggested committee staff will review the Attorney General’s testimony to see if his deceptions merit charges of perjury being brought against him.”

 
Marshall, at his blog Talking Points Memo, writes, “We’ve got a slew of video clips of key exchanges in today’s coverage at Muckraker. But this one stands out for me, even though in some ways it’s not the most egregious case.”

In this exchange Sen. Schumer (D) asks Gonzales who sent him and Andy Card to John Ashcroft’s bedside. And Gonzales just refuses to answer. He keeps repeating that they went “on behalf” of the president. But he won’t say if the president sent them. He just won’t answer.

Schumer notes the key point: Gonzales isn’t even asserting any kind of privilege. He doesn’t say he can’t remember. He just won’t answer.

Marshall concludes, “[I]t’s simply not permitted to refuse to answer a question. It is quite literally contempt of Congress.”

The Bush administration clearly has contempt for Congress, for its rivaling branches of government, and for judicial “order.” As for a “moral sense”? Please. So whence cometh this contempt? Cheney’s cabal have surely been the masterminds, but the writings of John Yoo, former White House and DoJ attorney and now a professor at UC Berkeley, have abetted the rise of an unbalanced, imperial presidency.

Glenn Greenwald, a constitutional law and civil rights attorney as well as blogger, says Yoo is “not only the most authoritarian but also the most partisan and intellectually dishonest lawyer in the country.”

Partisan and intellectually dishonest:

Yoo is not only willing — but intensely eager — to defend literally anything George W. Bush does or would want to do, including — literally — torturing people and crushing the testicles of children if the Leader decreed that doing so was necessary to fight Terrorists. Yoo, of course, is a principal author of most of the radical executive power theories which have eroded our constitutional framework over the last six years.

In defending the President, Yoo’s Op-Ed yesterday touts the grave importance of Executive Privilege and makes all the claims one would expect. He stresses the “president’s right to keep internal executive discussions confidential”; proclaims that “without secrecy, the government can’t function”; compares Bush’s assertions to George Washington’s; and concludes that by asserting Executive Privilege (nowhere mentioned in the Constitution), Bush “has the Constitution on his side.”

But this isn’t the first Op-Ed Yoo has written on the topic of Executive Privilege for the Wall St. Journal. Back in 1998, when Bill Clinton was asserting the same privilege to resist Congressional demands that his closest aides testify about the President’s deliberations in responding to the various Lewinsky investigations, Yoo became one of the leading spokespeople denouncing the assertion of this privilege.

On March 2, 1998, Yoo wrote an Op-Ed (sub. req’d) for the WSJ Editorial Page (which back then also opposed the privilege only now to depict it as the anchor of a Free Government). In denouncing Clinton’s executive privilege assertions, Yoo began his op-ed this way:

James Madison wrote that a “popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both.”

That is the same Yoo who, under the Bush presidency, has become a virtually absolute defender of presidential secrecy. Yoo continued:

Reports that President Clinton may invoke executive privilege to block the investigation into the Monica Lewinsky affair have elements of both. . . .

Partisan and intellectually dishonest: That’s the fitting description of Yoo and of Alberto Gonzales. It’s fun to rant that “Alberto Gonzales is blind, deaf, dumb, and unfeeling to a sociopathic extreme.” But “partisan and intellectually dishonest” is the most on-target description.

Dana Milbank writes for today’s Washington Post:

After four hours of questioning Attorney General Alberto Gonzales yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee didn’t even require a vote to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Congress is in contempt of Gonzales.

Consider some of the invective directed at the attorney general as he sat hunched and grim at the witness table:

“The department is dysfunctional. . . . Every week a new issue arises. . . . That is just decimating, Mr. Attorney General. . . . The list goes on and on. . . . Is your department functioning? . . . What credibility is left for you? . . . Do you expect us to believe that? . . . Your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable.”

And that was just from the top Republican on the committee, Arlen Specter (Pa.). Democrats had to scramble to keep up with the ranking member’s contempt. … [Milbank then quotes Democratic committee members' remarks.]

:::::::::::::

Of note: The equally “partisan, intellectually dishonest” Faux News yesterday reported that Sen. Specter is a Democrat, along with other falsehoods:

Angle’s report on Gonzales hearing falsely identified Specter as a Democrat

On the July 24 edition of Fox News’ Special Report with Brit Hume, on-screen text identified Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) as a Democrat during a report from chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ July 24 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The text appeared during footage of Specter telling Gonzales that the committee would be reviewing his testimony about a May 10, 2004, confrontation over the Bush administration’s warrantless domestic wiretapping program to “see if your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable.” Angle introduced the footage of Specter as an example of “other[]” senators who “urged the attorney general to correct his testimony, vaguely warning of legal action.” At no time during Angle’s report did anyone say that Specter was, in fact, a Republican.

Host Brit Hume, in his preview of Angle’s report on the hearing, said that Gonzales “end[ed] up being called untrustworthy and a liar by Senate Democrats.” Angle’s report mentioned only one other senator by name, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), as criticizing Gonzales. Rockefeller was identified as “the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence committee” in 2004. …

As well as being “partisan, intellectually dishonest,” I gather Faux News’s reporters are also back-in-time travelers to the good ol’ days of a Republican majority.

:::::::::::

Today’s Progress Report has a great backgrounder on the issues surrounding Gonzales’s testimony yesterday.

SPECTER THREATENS MORE ACTION: In June, a majority of the Senate expressed its desire to see the body take a no-confidence vote on Gonzales. The Washington Post writes, “At what point does someone lose so much credibility that he should no longer serve in public office?” Specter yesterday appeared to raise the possibility of bringing perjury charges against Gonzales, arguing, “Your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable.” Time reports, “Specter wryly noted to reporters during a break that there is a jail in the Capitol complex.” Specter also “raised the stakes for Gonzales and the administration yesterday by suggesting that a special prosecutor may be needed” if Gonzales and the White House continue to thwart congressional oversight.