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.
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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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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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GWB wouldn''t know the meaning of the word loyalty if it bit him in the a**. He is a spoiled, self-centered, brat, that surrounds himself with yes men. (Like Gonzales)
Problem is that Alberto got caught being a yes man and lying to congress. To equate these sycophants to loyalty is dragging the idea of loyalty through the sewer.
http://www.amazon.com/Real-Stars-Todays-America-Heroes/dp/1401911447/ref=pd_bbs_sr_7/102-3108959-6420903?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188392424&sr=8-7
Qaeda warns of attacks ''worse than 9/11''
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070530102648.wuwa6k96&show_article=1
Hizbullah Deputy Sec-Gen Sheikh Naim Qassem: We Have Jurisprudent Permission to Carry Out ''Martyrdom'' Operations, Fire Missiles on Israeli Civilians From Ayatollah Khomeini
http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD154907
Switching Sides: Inside The Enemy Camp
But then in 2000, well before his arrest, something happened which would make Abas question everything he believed in: a fatwa, a religious edict, was issued by Osama bin Laden.
"It should be understood that killing Americans and Jews anywhere found are the highest act of worship and the highest form of good deeds in the eyes of Allah," Simon quotes bin Laden.
Abas and his fellow commanders were ordered to read the fatwa to their men and make sure they carried it out. The others obeyed, but Abas refused. It was his moment of truth. He firmly believed that jihad was to be fought only on the battlefield in defense of Islam; he had always been taught that the killing of civilians had nothing to do with holy war and that it was forbidden.
The fatwa justified killing non-Muslim civilians everywhere.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/04/60minutes/main2761108.shtml?source=RSSattr=60Minutes_2761108
American Al Qaeda Member Threatens Attack
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/29/terror/main2865282.shtml
Ahh now you tell Bush, what stopped you from speaking up earlier? It is safe to say Bush has never considered these three criteria when he makes his gut god speak decisions. And it shows, the Bush legacy will be of an amoral man void of a moral center, a vicious wining politician and a failed Statesman whose need of the sycophant came first before country.
i a musselmanlike ahnohld
dnc are like john adams and want to give the jihadist their lunch money hoping they will leave us alone....
gop are like thomas jefferson and want to spend their lunch money on weapons and go kick the jihadists in their arses.....
What Thomas Jefferson learned from the Muslim book of jihad
Thomas Jefferson knew about fascist nazi islam..... he killed plenty of them....
In 1786 Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli''s envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman or (Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). They asked him by what right he extorted money and took slaves. Jefferson reported to Secretary of State John Jay, and to the Congress:
The ambassador answered us that [the right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet (Mohammed), that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to heaven.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War
http://www.usvetdsp.com/jan07/jeff_quran.htm
muslim justifies slavery and piracy%u2026
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?6bdec278-6a71-4436-bc4d-29d1c54b0ad7
"Because if we''''d gone to Baghdad, we would have been all alone. There wouldn''''t have been anybody else with us %u2014 it would have been a US occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq. Once you got to Iraq and took it over, and took down Saddam Hussein''''s government, then what are you going to put in its place? That''''s a very volatile part of the world.
And if you take down the central government in Iraq, you could easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off. Part of it%u2026uh%u2026the Syrians would like to have in the West. Part of the eastern part of Iraq the Iranians would like to claim, fought over it for eight years. In the north, you''''ve got the Kurds. If the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It''''s a%u2026it''''s a quagmire, if you go that far in trying to take over Iraq.
The other thing was casualties. Uh%u2026everyone was impressed with that fact that%u2026uh%u2026we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action and for their families, it wasn''''t a cheap war. And the question for the President in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad and took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans was Saddam worth? And our judgment was not very many, and I think we got that right."
We in Ohio would beg to differ with your 2004 assessment.
Posted by oleander8 at 12:58 PM : Aug 28, 2007
Ok I''ll bite, what happened in Ohio in 2004?
I''m not convinced he''s not just a victim of an overblown media.
Oh good.. I''m scratch''n me peckkkker.
So will our children and grandchildren. America''s time in the sun is over. There are very dark clouds on the horizon. Massive debt, broken military, stagnent economy. Immigration, healthcare, education, social security all needed overhauling and nothing happened. Those issues will still need to be addressed next term along with ending the Iraq debacle and repairing our reputation.
We will be living with Bush problems for decades to come.
We in Ohio would beg to differ with your 2004 assessment.
7-11,... let alone , a Super power country...ah, my 2 cents..lol
Posted by DODAZ at 11:50 AM : Aug 28, 2007
The only way the ''bush was never elected'' excude is valid would be between 00-04. I don''t think there was any issue with the 2004 election. Therefore, the Bush was never elected comment is a little past due.
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