While You're At It, Impeach Rove By: Mark W Adams

It didn't take long for three of the most influential liberal blogs to call for the impeachment of Alberto Gonzales after the New York Times advised President Bush to (finally) dismiss the worst Attorney General since Ed Meese. (And to be fair, Gonzo is way worse than Meese ever was.)

The Times article lays out the case against the Attorney General in no uncertain terms. Gonzales is a disgrace. The politically motivated US Attorney firings, the FBI illegally spying on Americans, giving the administration legal cover to engage in "kidnapping, secret detentions, abuse and torture," trashing the authority of the courts and the clearly worded meaning of laws, and undermining the electoral process itself. He is indeed,"consigliere to Mr. Bush’s imperial presidency."

MyDD's Jonathan Singer actually beat the Times to the punch, hoping impeachment hearings will force Gonzales' resignation while noting that the Senate Judiciary Committee's Ranking Member, Arlen Spector (R-PA) has had enough of the nation's top law enforcement official acting like he got his law degree out of a box of Cracker Jack.

"One day, there will be a new attorney general, maybe sooner rather than later"

Well before the we lost an hour to Daylight Saving Time, The Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft joined MyDD in the quest for the AG's impeachment. McJoan at that Orange Blog also called for Alberto's impeachment not 20 minutes later.

This of course proves that there is a vast left-wing conspiracy -- if you're a Fox News commentator that is. The Times, by merely calling for Gonzales' dismissal, just set the talking points for this morning's Sunday Bobbleheads. Brit Hume's eyes will bug out of his pointy head as he tells us how Shocked! ... Shocked he is that anyone would listen to such an obvious liberal hit-job.

The Times doesn't go far enough for us real liberals.

Another thing became clear this evening. Once again, Karl Rove is at the center of a White House scandal. It really should be no surprise that Rove's name should come up in the context of the fired U.S. Attorneys scandal -- affectionately known as the "Overblown Personnel Matter."

Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor, McClatchy Newspapers: Presidential advisor Karl Rove and at least one other member of the White House political team were urged by the New Mexico Republican party chairman to fire the state's U.S. attorney because of dissatisfaction in part with his failure to indict Democrats in a voter fraud investigation in the battleground election state.

In an interview Saturday with McClatchy Newspapers, Allen Weh, the party chairman, said he complained in 2005 about then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to a White House liaison who worked for Rove and asked that he be removed. Weh said he followed up with Rove personally in late 2006 during a visit to the White House.

"Is anything ever going to happen to that guy?" Weh said he asked Rove at a White House holiday event that month.

"He's gone," Rove said, according to Weh.

[snip]

"Anyone with any experience within the Justice Department is completely shocked and appalled by what has been described," said Stanley Hunterton, a former federal prosecutor of 12 years who investigated organized crime in Detroit and Las Vegas. "One of the things the Department has stood for was being apolitical. Sure, politics does gets involved in the appointment process, but this is just nuts."

It's really this simple. The Attorney General committed perjury when he told Congress: "We have never asked a U.S. attorney to resign in an effort to retaliate against him or her or to inappropriately interfere with a public corruption case." This was a lie, because Karl Rove, known CIA cover blower, knew that someone in the White House "inappropriately interfered" in a public corruption case and fired what looks like more than a few U.S. Attorneys in retaliation.

The fact is, the real liberal conspiracy belongs to those of us who not only know better (that Bush will never fire Gonzo, let alone Turd Blossom) and are not afraid to stake out a controversial position even though we we know there are many who will disagree with us. The conspiracy can better be summed up with an old maxim that was played out in the 10:00 hour -- Great Minds Thinks Alike.

Moderate Left must be another term for Dispassionate Liberal.

I mean…my God, at what point do we start the impeachment proceedings?

The closest adviser to President Bush was actively involved in using the Justice Department to score political points against Democrats, and took steps to fire U.S. Attorneys who were insufficiently partisan.

That’s the opposite of everything that the Justice Department is supposed to stand for.

Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove should be fired immediately. Not tomorrow, not after breakfast, immediately. If that does not happen, Congress should immediately begin hearings into whether the President’s use of the Justice Department to harass political enemies is an impeachable offense. It certainly is contrary to the spirit of the Constitution.

My "moderate" friend is so excitable. A "dispassionate" examination of the situation would inform him that Gonzales himself is a Civil Officer of the United States, subject to impeachment pursuant to Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution. Rove, as Deputy Chief of Staff likewise is impeachable -- after all, he's not getting paid out of the spare change found in the cushions of the Oval Office couches.

What's fun is that if the pattern we saw in the Libby case holds, Rove will sing like a canary when it looks like his own hide is being hung out to dry once he's sworn in. Who's going to lay odds that the approval process of the list of which U.S. Attorneys to fire went through the Office of Vice President?

Anybody? Any takers on my bet? Anybody?

Beuler?

No?

I guess the secret's out. Gonzales, Rove and Dick Cheney abuse more power before breakfast than Nixon could have dreamed up if he'd been given a third term.