WASHINGTON, Aug. 27, 2007
Gonzales-Bush Loyalty A Two-Way Street
Washington Post Analysis: Examining The Career Of The Attorney General Upon His Resignation
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Play CBS Video Video Bush On Gonzales' Resignation CBS News RAW: President Bush responded to Alberto Gonzales' announcement he was resigning his post as U.S. attorney general.
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Video Timing Of Gonzalez Resignation Only On The Web: Bill Plante takes a look at why Attorney General Alberto Gonzales submitted his resignation prior to Congress reconvening after a summer hiatus.
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Video Gonzales Steps Down Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has resigned but remains a controversial figure due to his involvement in secret government wiretapping and firing U.S. district attorneys. Pauline Chiou reports.
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Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announces his resignation at a press conference at the Justice Department Headquarters in Washington, Aug. 27, 2007. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
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Interactive Tumultuous Tenure Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigns amid firings firestorm, questions over handling of terror investigations.
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Photo Essay Alberto Gonzales Attorney General resigns after lengthy standoff over U.S. attorney firings, terror probes.
From Our Partner:
Justice Department investigators disclosed in June that they were examining whether Gonzales sought to improperly influence the testimony about the prosecutor firings of a former senior aide, Monica M. Goodling, shortly before she left the Justice Department. Such an inquiry could lead to a criminal referral if there was evidence of a crime, such as obstruction of justice.
Conservatives were always wary of Gonzales because of his moderate positions on divisive social issues such as abortion and affirmative action. When Gonzales surfaced as a possible candidate for the Supreme Court in 2005, some said the president could make history and expand the reach of the Republican Party by appointing the first Hispanic to the court. But right-wing activists made it clear they would oppose him.
Liberals, meanwhile, were skeptical of Gonzales for his role in crafting legal memos that some human rights advocates say allowed the torture of terrorism suspects and created the atmosphere for abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
While Gonzales has been a trailblazer among Hispanics, he was not a national figure until the controversy over the prosecutor dismissals and enjoyed at best tepid support from most major Latino organizations.
"He is the most powerful Latino to ever serve in the Cabinet," said Fernando Guerra, a political scientist at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. "But he doesn't have very high name recognition."
Described by friends and former colleagues as reserved and often inscrutable in meetings, Gonzales preferred to operate in private. "He liked to hear debate between different sides before coming to his own decision," said John Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer who worked closely with Gonzales in shaping legal strategy following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "He would listen and ask just a few questions. Usually, you would go to a meeting with him and not know where he stood."
But the same qualities evidently helped forge his close relationship with Bush. "If other Bush advisers are predisposed to discretion, Gonzales was discreet squared," said Bill Minutaglio, author of "The President's Counselor," a biography of Gonzales. "As a personality he exhibits almost a mortician's calm. He is emotionally flat-lined."
The son of migrant workers who raised their eight children in a two-bedroom house in Humble, Texas, Gonzales has lived the kind of Horatio Alger story that touches Bush. Gonzales played both baseball and football in high school and worked weekends with a neighbor serving cold drinks at Rice University football games in nearby Houston. He enlisted in the Air Force and was stationed near the Artic Circle, where some of his superior officers urged him to apply to the U.S. Air Force Academy. He spent two years there before transferring to Rice.
After graduating, he went on to Harvard Law School and from there, he was recruited to Vinson & Elkins, a high-powered Houston law firm, where he specialized in large real estate deals. He became general counsel for then-Gov. Bush in 1995, before becoming Texas secretary of state and being named by Bush to the state Supreme Court in 1999.
On the court, Gonzales was a moderate. Lacking a litigation background, Gonzales had to work hard to keep up. He often arrived at work early and stayed late, reading cases that some other justices knew just from their citations, a former colleague said.
But Tom Phillips, who served as chief justice while Gonzales was on the court, said: "He more than held is own."
As White House counsel beginning in 2001, Gonzales surrounded himself with bright, highly conservative lawyers who subscribed to controversial legal theories that the constitution gives the president much more authority than the Congress or the judiciary, and international treaties are subject to "situational" adherence rather than strict compliance.
© 2007 The Washington Post Company
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See all 173 CommentsYawn............
President''s Remarks at GOP Luncheon, 2-27-02
Remarks by the President to Robin Hayes for Congress and Elizabeth Dole for Senate
North Carolina Republican Party Luncheon, Charlotte Convention Center, Charlotte, North Carolina
Bush: You know, I was campaigning in Chicago and somebody asked me, is there ever any time where the budget might have to go into deficit? I said only if we were at war or had a national emergency or were in recession. (Laughter.) Little did I realize we''d get the trifecta. (Laughter.)
How will President George W. Bush personally make millions (if not billions) from the War on Terror and Iraq? The old fashioned way. He''ll inherit it. The Carlyle Group
Former World Leaders and Washington Insiders Making Billions in the War on Terrorism
They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy.
She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me.
I can''t help it if I''m lucky. - Bob Dylan
"It also gives us a very special, secret pleasure to see how unaware the people around us are of what is really happening to them."
- Adolf Hitler
Posted by SgtRDS at 11:54 PM : Aug 27, 2007
Hey, Sgt coincidence theorists how about a new investigation into 9/11?
Robert Fisk: Even I question the ''truth'' about 9/11
Robert Fisk
London Independent
Saturday, August 25, 2007
University of Massachusetts Professor Calls For New 9/11 Investigation
Patriots Question 9/11
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Lynn Margulis, AB, MS, PhD %u2013 Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts - Amherst. Elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1983.
Cronysim: hiring friends over competency.
Above describes the Southern Conservative culture.
Posted by ConDumism at 11:41 PM : Aug 27, 2007
.......
Now being unemployed, I kinda wish I was "really good friends" with Bush!
I could use a job in the "Justice" Department, (or any Department) right now!
:-)
Cronysim: hiring friends over competency.
Above describes the Southern Conservative culture.
Posted by ConDumism at 11:41 PM : Aug 27, 2007
Which is why we need a criminal/Senate investigation into the hiring of Richard Stickly as head of MSHA!
Cronysim: hiring friends over competency.
Above describes the Southern Conservative culture.
How would that make the "Justice" Department any more credible?
A Mob boss doesn''t replace a hitman with a representative from the Church, no, he replaces the hitman with another killer!
CREDIBILITY IS NOT A GOAL OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION. NEVER HAS BEEN. NEVER WILL BE.
Posted by katg21 at 04:15 PM : Aug 27, 2007
HERE YA GO: SPIN IT IF YOU CAN. LMAO:
His support among Republicans in Congress, already weak, eroded markedly, then suffered further with word of the bedside meeting in the intensive care unit of George Washington University Hospital three years earlier.
Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified that Ashcroft had refused to reauthorize the wiretapping program. Appearing before the Judiciary Committee, he described a confrontation in which Gonzales _ White House counsel at the time _ and White House Chief of Staff Andy Card had appealed to Ashcroft to overrule his deputy. The ill Ashcroft refused, saying he had transferred power to Comey.
Comey described the events as "an effort to take advantage of a very sick man who did not have the powers of the attorney general."
"Gonzales subsequently denied that the dispute was about the terrorist surveillance program, but his credibility was undercut when FBI Director Robert S. Mueller contradicted him.
Several Democrats called for a perjury investigation, but no further action has been taken.
There was one comment posted here earler
that - Now has been deleted ! ! !
The statement claimed :
The Criminal Investigation Division of :
The Internal Revenue Service was Responsible -
For conducting a Criminal Investigation against members of :
The Bush Administration - The FBI - and The Justice Department.
If anyone copied that Statement - Comment
Re-post it here for me.
I have a Profound Interest in that Particular :
"Criminal Investigation"
Lastdance
said Bill Minutaglio, author of "The President''s Counselor," a biography of Gonzales. "As a personality he exhibits almost a mortician''s calm. He is emotionally flat-lined."
Himmler, Hitler''s torture boy and architect of the "Final Solution" was said to be emotionally flat lined" also. Dead pan is the word--disconnected and therefore capable of anything. Like Jason in the movies--slasher-Halloween.
This game should be alot of fun.
Posted by One_American at 03:12 PM : Aug 27, 2007
What has Murtha, Reid or Pelosi done that even compares with Bush administrations track record?
How many wars did they start based on false pretenses?
How many times have they violated the rights we have according to our constitution?
How many times have they lied about the real cost of the Iraq war?
I say why not, lets investigate them all!
However, lets post the score when its all over and vote accordingly.
Posted by katg21 at 04:42 PM : Aug 27, 2007
You have a point. A POS will only choose other turds that stink as much or more than he. LOL
Posted by katg21 at 04:15 PM : Aug 27, 2007
That''s why all of you still love Bush and Gonzo--you are all liars too. Of course the lies were proven. We all heard him deny ever being in any meetings, and then we watched his flunkies all sell him out one by one and we heard him lie about what was said to Ashcroft too---and then heard the contradiction of another staff member. And since, most of what Gonzo said he later either contradicted or did not remember....he not only was and is a liar but a stupid one at that--and you are a liar. Write a book: "***. Lies, Liars, and the Lying Liars who Love Them" at least 29% of you will buy it, sure that you are in it somewhere.
Remember those words when your Republican voter choice boils down to a man who not only had a mistress who performed more than bj, but was a home wrecker and now wants to validate his behavior by installing his mistress as our first lady. Since by your words, you appear to be above selective morality--We just "know" that such a moral misfit such as Guiliani and his mistress wife/judy ---would never get your vote, right? LOL.
Posted by katg21 at 04:11 PM : Aug 27, 2007
Nope Carter was inept, worse than ineptitude will always be pure power hungry evil, and unforgiveable and contemptible is the double whammy of ineptitude and power hungry evil--THAT is this administration. So Nixon and Bush win the FU-America -BAR Darwin prize hands down.
For those who never learned that acronym: Fvckkked Up America Beyond All Recognition.
Posted by IOWEIGN at 03:25 PM : Aug 27, 2007
CORRECTION: You left out those ILLEGALLY WRITTEN ON FORBIDDEN LAPTOPS--missing WH emails - those WILL be alot of fun !!
Posted by IOWEIGN at 03:25 PM : Aug 27, 2007
If I were the Democrats and pretty well knowing how Bush works, I would not move too quickly to help him install another devoted thug in the DOJ. They should take their time confirming and verifying independence. None with Bush''s *** on their lips or residual stuff streaming from ***** or azzes need apply. Get ''er done by Nov. 2008. Just in time to do a poor job shredding and erasing the data.
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