Washington D.C.--She's saying she wasn't "the keys to the kingdom" (after all, that would be Jesus) in deciding who was and wasn't going to be fired and appointed as a U.S. Attorney--but who was? We didn't get that yesterday, and this writer--and most of the public--believes that she knows full-well who it is. The problem is that she would incriminate herself, which is why she has continued to invoke the Fifth amendment to bar that. It's up to the House (and Senate) Judiciary committees to press her on who this is. Goodling is saying she never conferred with presidential advisor Karl Rove about this at any time.
This is odd, considering she was the Justice Department's liaison to the White House--she went there and spoke with them face-to-face about the firings and all other issues pertinent to the running of that department. She was the message-girl for Alberto Gonzales, as well as his senior legal advisor. It seems her advice wasn't that good. Perhaps it's her credentials, maybe more akin to monopoly money in the legal world:
Indeed, Goodling, a graduate of conservative Christian leader Pat Robertson's Regent University law school who served as a senior counsel to Gonzales and the department's White House liaison, said Bush political adviser Karl Rove never contacted her about the firing of any prosecutor. One of the dismissed U.S. attorneys was replaced by a former Rove aide. Goodling was subpoenaed as part of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee's probe of Gonzales' firing last year of nine of the 93 U.S. attorneys, all Bush appointees. (Reuters, 05.23.2007)
Regent University?! That's not a real college, is it? It's time to ask this question: how many individuals with Goodling's religious university credentials have been inserted-into all of the departments of government by the Bush administration? This is creepy stuff, and has the shades of a silent-coup. By placing as many of these people within the bureaucracy, you begin to have what is essentially a parallel institution, or a "fifth-column." Parallel institutions are part of how NSDAP seized-power in Germany in 1933. Are we seeing the fruits of "faith-based" subsides? Power was certainly on their minds.
Goodling had been a divisive figure at the Justice Department since she arrived in early 2002, gaining a reputation for having a mercurial temperament and being prickly toward career employees, said numerous current and former officials who worked with her. Goodling and Sampson "knew politics, not law," said Bruce Fein, a senior Justice official during the Reagan administration. "This extent [of] neophytes running the department is highly irregular." Goodling started at Justice in a newly created position as senior counsel to the head of the public affairs office. (Washington Post, 05.23.2007)
That's right, even a Reagan appointee thinks the Bush-approach stinks of corruption and cronyism. New-positions were created within the Justice Department to employ people like Goodling (just the case with her example and the recently resigned Randall Tobias). These are patronage jobs for favors rendered (in her case, from Pat Robertson), nothing more...except also upending traditional structures of government. Unsatisfied that their ultra-conservative ideology didn't fit in a functioning bureaucracy, the neocons set-out to wrench the gears of government to prove it doesn't work. We know now it doesn't when the GOP is in-office.
We also learned that Goodling had a real crying-jag when she learned on March 8th that she was going to have to testify: "All I ever wanted to do was serve this president, this administration, this department." But you have served it, and you still are, dearie. You're just another human-parachute that the president needed to avoid responsibility for his crimes. You're just another patsy. I guess crying would be appropriate (for a girl), but how could she have thought this would end any other way? How could anyone? 9/11, of course, the moment that most of America lost its mind to fear.
The most important revelations are that Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty's and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's testimony before Congress "was incomplete," according to Goodling. Needless-to-say, both are denying her claims, with McNulty citing that he delivered what he knew "truthfully" to "the best of his knowledge" when he testified under oath. That's great. He's gone on to say that Goodling didn't brief him on everything, therefore, that's why he didn't know it. Problem: she was not his boss. Yes, Alberto lied (again)--he previously stated he had been avoiding former aides, but he did talk to Goodling, one of the lynchpins in getting the stories straight.
A former Justice Department official told House investigators Wednesday that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales tried to review his version of the prosecutor firings with her at a time when lawmakers were homing in on conflicting accounts. Gonzales has testified he hasn't spoken with witnesses. "It made me a little uncomfortable," Monica Goodling, Gonzales' former White House liaison, said of her conversation with the attorney general just before she took a leave of absence in March. "I just did not know if it was appropriate for us to both be discussing our recollections of what had happened." (AP, 05.23.2007)
Again-and-again, Alberto Gonzales lies, yet the president "continues to support" him. This is because the president is also a liar, as well as the majority of his administration. His word really means nothing, yet Congress is capitulating to him on other fronts. Well, not immigration, at least not his own party. Then, there's the surge-surge that won't work-work. By late-September, you're going to see a very broken-individual occupying what's left of his administration. The beauty of it all is that given that the GOP ensures the war won't end while a Republican is in the White House, it also ensures they won't keep it in 2008.
The fun doesn't stop there, however. Ignoring the landslide outcome of the 2006 midterms, they're going to lose even more seats in both houses of Congress. Add-to-the-mix even more scandals involving GOP-incumbents (for now), and you have a potential washout. What's so funny about it is that they are making it inevitable by their continued blind-support of the Bush administration and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The question is: why? What are they being told? What are they being convinced of? Perhaps another attempt at stealing an election is in-the-works? Only they hear the song of the sirens, so it's time to lash them to the mast.
It's a strange contention that Goodling never met with Harriet Miers or Karl Rove. Did she commit perjury? This is unlikely. Perhaps they covered their tracks better than we all suspected, but a smoking gun is out there, somewhere. One could assume that it's on the "missing e-mails," and all the other documentation that the Bush administration refuses to turn-over. Remember that Goodling was offered limited immunity if she testified, being granted it for nearly everything but perjury, so it's unlikely that she's lying about anything. She'll be called to testify again. Per usual, the mainstream press and the wires did their best to ignore something of extreme importance (so did Congress) in Goodling's prepared opening-remarks:
Despite my and others' best efforts, [Deputy Attorney General, Paul McNulty]'s public testimony was incomplete or inaccurate in a number of respects. As explained in more detail in my written remarks, I believe that the Deputy was not fully candid about his knowledge of White House involvement in the replacement decision, failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of the White House's interest in selecting Tim Griffin as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, inaccurately described the Department's internal assessment of the Parsky Commission, and failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of allegations that Tim Griffin had been involved in vote "caging" during his work on the President's 2004 campaign.
Removing any references to the caging-lists, the wires can be said to be engaging in an "excision." "Caging-lists" is of incredible importance, because along with voter apathy, it's part of how the GOP has been able to win elections since the early-1980s. By kicking Blacks and the poor off of voting-lists through the use of registered junk-mail, they have created a space for themselves. Blacks don't vote Republican. At this point, all the neocons have left is to do what they do best--smear her and attack her credibility. The problem is that they're not saying any of it under oath. They should be compelled to, particularly former Bush legal counsel Harriet Miers, and Karl Rove, a senior advisor to the president.
Granted, Monica Goodling isn't the most credible individual, but she was appointed by George W. Bush. That has to count for something, doesn't it? The story coming-out about Goodling's performance now is that she was "tirelessly dedicated to the Bush administration," and "antagonistic" "with an ideological style." That sounds like a Bush appointee to this writer. Monica Goodling deserves no sympathy whatsoever, but she should be listened to. She knows an awful lot about numerous other crimes. Welcome to the return of Jim Crow.
Reuters, 05.23.2007: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070524/pl_nm/usa_prosecutors_dc
The smear-campaign begins, 05.23.2007: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/22/AR2007052201601_2.html
AP on the Goodling testimony, 05.23.2007: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070524/ap_on_go_co/fired_prosecutors_44;_ylt=AgrnJzDDezVhlQjkaGEfA5Ab.3QA
AFP, 05.23.2007: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/070523/usa/us_justice_politics&printer=1
Monica Goodling's under-reported opening-statements: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/files/1179932493MG%20Spoken%20Remarks_Page_1.jpg
No comments:
Post a Comment