It’s time for Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove to go

“President Bartlet’s a good man, he’s got a good heart, he doesn’t hold a grudge. That’s what he pays me for.” Josh Lyman, The West Wing; threatening a fellow Democrat.

It’s time for Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove to go
Joe Leonardi

Eight U.S. attorneys, who serve at the pleasure of the President, were shown the door. So what? The President no longer desired their service — end of story. However, in the Bush White House simple is never simple. For some reason the White House, through A.G. Gonzales and it appears with direction from Karl Rove, came up with performance issues to justify the firings. Now the axed attorneys are speaking out, scandal is the watchword and hearings won’t be far behind.

All this because the Bushies can’t figure out the most important rule of politics. The cover up is worse than the crime. All that needed to be said was that these particular attorney’s services were no longer desired and the President asked them to leave. But nope, not for the media (un-savvy) executive branch. They started claiming that the recently unemployed were let go for performance issues. One problem; the paper trail doesn’t support that allegation and now the U.S. Congress wants to know why.

So what’s next? Some brainchild decides that the President’s people will go to Congress, not under oath, behind closed doors and there will be no record. Even if you have nothing to hide, boy when you act like President Nixon releasing edited transcripts, how can people not presume you are hiding something.

Unless it can be demonstrated that these firings were done to directly interfere with an ongoing investigation, and let’s be serious any firing would probably if not interfere, cause a disruption of an ongoing investigation, there is no wrong doing.

Next, we have the claim that these firings were politically motivated. I have heard three of the fired attorneys speak and not one of them seem to have a problem with politics being the reason. They are upset with their performance being unfairly maligned. Do you know why they aren’t concerned about the politics of being replaced. Because they were hired due to politics. That’s why they are called political appointments.

Unfortunately for the last six years we have been witnessing the Rovification of the Executive Branch. Everything is politics. You can’t govern when you consistently place politics first. Karl Rove is the real life version of Josh Lyman. If you don’t remember who Josh Lyman is, he is the Deputy Chief of Staff, in the idealized liberal fantasy show “The West Wing.” Josh Lyman is the character to whom everything is politics. So much so that when PsudeoClinton, “Bartlet”, steps down in the wake of his daughter’s kidnapping, Josh accuses the republicans in charge of trying to obtain political gain. Karl Rove is this person in the Bush White House. Mr. Rove is an incredible political strategist, a person like him is necessary in every administration. Unfortunately unlike his fictional counterpart, Rove doesn’t have a script to reel him in.

Each day it becomes more obvious that President Bush was uniquely unqualified for the position he was elected to, but what is even worse is that he has surrounded himself by purely politically motivated yes people. The end result is everything is a political battle and the job of governing isn’t being accomplished.

The President should use this opportunity to get rid of both Gonzales and Rove. The people have lost confidence in their Attorney General and that is unacceptable. The President’s support isn’t helping, because the President doesn’t enjoy the support of the American People. Rove needs to go because he appears to be connected to everything that is going wrong.

Perhaps if he can get some genuine advisors who put loyalty to the United States first and politics second, he could be more than a lame duck for the next two years.

Mr. President, while people may serve at your pleasure — they should not serve only to please you.

Joe Leonardi