Friday morning

The Bush White House looks scarier and scarier as time goes on. By telling Gonzales not to honor contempt charges, they are essentially claiming the "right to determine the limits of their own power." I can't remember who wrote that, but it absolutely nails the problem. In a real democracy, Bush allows this to go forward and let the courts decide if he deserves executive priviledge. Instead, he says that when he claims it, that is the end and there is nothing Congress can do. Reminds me of Nixon saying "When the President does it, that means it isn't illegal." Bush appears to be daring Congress to impeach him--knowing that he has the votes to survive it. Ah, another little gift from Republicans--impeaching Clinton essentially saving a far worse President from legitimate impeachment.

Instead, I wish they would go after Gonzo, as I have said before. And his latest debacle of testimony might provide that possibility.

"It's been pretty clear for a while that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has repeatedly lied to investigative committees on Capitol Hill. But yesterday he took that fateful step of making a false statement about an event in which there are multiple fact witnesses available to contradict him. Indeed, the falsehood was apparently so great that even fellow members of the administration like FBI Chief Robert Mueller felt bound to contradict him publicly."

Now, the Dems are pushing for a Special Counsel and hoping that Solicitor General Paul Clement is not as corrupt as Albert Gonzales or his bosses. We shall see.

I was talking with my friend Mary yesterday about Gonzales' testimony and we agreed that had we performed that badly on national television, we would take out a full page ad in the NY Times and apologize for being so stupid.

*****

Anne Marie Cox had a funny line about checks and balances:

"You know if the Senate would just call it 'legislative waterboarding' and not 'oversight,' I bet they could get Cheney to support it."

It would be funnier if it weren't so scary. How bad does it have to be when we joke about an American administration that tortures?

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Yesterday, I posted some more Conservatives who have lost faith in this administration. The list is growing.

"One of us was appointed commandant of the Marine Corps by President Ronald Reagan; the other served as a lawyer in the Reagan White House and has vigorously defended the constitutionality of warrantless National Security Agency wiretaps, presidential signing statements and many other controversial aspects of the war on terrorism. But we cannot in good conscience defend a decision that we believe has compromised our national honor and that may well promote the commission of war crimes by Americans and place at risk the welfare of captured American military forces for generations to come."

******

Then this truly horrific possibility that Pat Tillman might have been murdered. No wonder Bush has invoked executive privilege on this subject as well. Hard enough to use a former NFL star to sell a war when he was killed by friendly fire. Harder still if one of his fellow soldiers fragged him.

No doubt that peopel in power work very hard to keep control of their image and their power. Bush is not unique to this, but his administration has been the most secretive in history and we need to shed a little daylight on some of the things that occurred under his watch. Many of them are not his fault, I am sure. But we need to know about this. Truth is like freedom, it is always harder to handle than the alternative, but usually better.