Ridiculing the nonsense of the San Angelo Standard Times Editorial Board since 2007

Saturday, August 4, 2007

Perjury: Not that big of a crime

That’s what the SASTEB is arguing on July 31, in “Special Counsel not Needed for Gonzales.”

Transcribing White House press releases must be giving them terrible writer's cramp. On the plus side, their brains have to be quite well rested. Let’s dive into the muck:

Senate Democrats have come up with a bad idea — demanding the appointment of a special counsel to investigate whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales committed perjury. What makes this more than just political grandstanding is that they have been joined by at least one senior Republican.

So, they’re saying that nobody needs to see whether Gonzales committed perjury or not. The SASTEB must, necessarily, be arguing one of two things:

1) Gonzales has not committed perjury.
2) Perjury is not so serious as to necessitate investigation.

Let’s see which one they go with.

Four senators from the Judiciary Committee wrote to Solicitor General Paul Clement, the official in the depleted Justice Department who would have to make that choice, condemning the testimony Gonzales gave Congress as “at a minimum half-truths and misleading statements.”

To be kind, Gonzales’ appearances before Congress have been marked by opacity and memory lapses. His appearance before the committee last Tuesday was, said GOP Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, “devastating. But so was the hearing before that, and so was the hearing before that.”


I guess I’ll put you guys down for #2. This is impressive - they are actually arguing that perjury doesn’t really matter. Lie to Congress, make stuff up in front of Federal Grand Juries, as long as you can say you’re protecting national security, it’s all cool. How can they write this without gagging?

The beleaguered Gonzales says he is determined to stay as attorney general, and President Bush seems determined to stand by him.

Am I the only person wondering why it appears that only two people in the universe feel that Gonzales is even remotely credible? I’m wondering if Fredo’s mom still likes him. I wonder if the SASTEB has a thought about why Bush is standing by Gonzales.

Loyalty might be driving Bush’s decision to keep Gonzales, but there might be more at play here. The president would face difficulty in finding someone willing to take over the department this late in his presidency and in getting the Senate to confirm that person.

Yes, it is so tough to find lawyers who would like to be the most powerful lawyer in the nation. That’s a tough job to fill - not a whole lot of interest out there. Plus, how in the world is anybody going to sign on for a job that only lasts 539 days?

A list of Attorneys General who have served less than 539 days: (note: calculated with July 31st as the starting date.)
William Bradford
John Breckinridge
Henry Gilpin
John J. Crittenden
John Y. Mason
Nathan Clifford
Isaac Toucey
Reverdy Johnson
Edwin M. Stanton
William M. Evarts
Ebenezer R. Hoar
Amos T. Akerman
Edwards Pierremont
Alphonso Taft (Interesting guy - founder of the Skull and Bones Club at Yale and father of the William Howard Taft. The Taft family in Ohio has probably been the most influential political family in American History.)
Wayne McVeagh
Joseph McKenna
An almost - James C. McReynolds served 542 days, essentially equivalent to what is left of Bush’s term.
Harlan Fiske Stone
Frank Murphy
James P. McGranery
Richard G. Kleindienst
Elliot L. Richardson (served a grand total of 148 days)
William B. Saxbe
Benjamin R. Civiletti (a perfect modern example - he started August 18 of 1979 to finish off Jimmy Carter’s term - exactly the same time frame as we currently have.)

All in all, 23 (not counting James C. McReynolds) of the 80 Attorneys General (including Gonzales) have served less than 539 days. That, of course, is roughly one out of four. Having a new Attorney General would not be odd at all.

Plus, Pat Leahy, Arlen Specter, and Co. would fall all over themselves to get a new attorney general. Confirmation shouldn't be a problem.

All this to say: the SASTEB is full of baloney. Plus, whether you can find a suitable replacement for an employee or not is not a criterion when judging if there should be a perjury investigation.

The perjury allegations arise out of what took place at meetings involving the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping and the firing of U.S. attorneys where Gonzales’ recollections conflict with those of others who were present.

Gonzales said that a specific meeting had nothing to do with the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP). Everybody (to a person, Republican and Democrat) else at the meeting said it was about the TSP. The Director of National Intelligence has documentation proving that the meeting was about the TSP. Here’s the point: Gonzales is wrong.

Here’s the catch: Gonzales has a week to correct his testimony in writing. He has failed to do so. It’s pretty much a slam dunk, to quote Medal of Honor recipient George Tenet.

The question is what is to be gained by appointing a special counsel, especially in view of the outcome of the special-counsel investigation into the CIA leak. The senators are going to find out what happened in those meetings anyway, and if Gonzales did willfully mislead, there’s no way the president should keep him on.

Didn’t you guys read what I just wrote? Faced by the facts, Gonzales still hasn’t corrected his testimony! He’s willfully misleading. We already know “what happened in those meetings.” The President is still keeping him on. Congress should do something.

The best defense Gonzales has come up with is that when the meetings happened, the program wasn’t called the TSP yet. That would be like me saying that I never talked about the Apple iPhone in December of '06 because, back then, Apple was was “Apple Computer,” not “Apple, Inc.” It’s ludicrous.

The CIA-leak case took three and a half years. If that is any benchmark, the probe will not be completed until well after Bush and Gonzales have left office, assuming the president doesn’t pardon him first.

The CIA leak case is not a benchmark. Fitzgerald spent two years having sand thrown in his eyes by Libby. When the prosecution actually began, the case only took about a year. If you take that part, I guess it could be a benchmark. But, then again, if you take that part, your entire thesis would seem absurd. Plus, if the President pardoned Gonzales, he should be impeached, according to James Madison at the Constitutional Convention.

A special counsel would be overkill.

Um... what should Congress do, then??? Just sit around and do nothing?
Here’s what they should do: ask the Solicitor General to look into it. If he refuses, then they should hold impeachment hearings for Gonzales. Pretty simple.

This is against a backdrop of a more serious issue — whether the president can defy congressional subpoenas and keep current and former top aides from testifying under oath by asserting executive privilege. Regretfully, Bush and Congress seem determined to force a resolution in court. But like a special-counsel investigation, there’s no telling where a court case is going to lead them.

What??? A court case leads to.... perjury charges. That easy. I love how this random stuff about the underlying investigation gets thrown in at the end. It really puts an exclamation point on the end of a largely incoherent and altogether poorly researched editorial.

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