Right, but if the leaks coming out are not total BS, Karl would have preferred Gonzales to go peacefully about a month ago–and preferably before Monica testifies. Given the coordinated response of the Republicans in HJC earlier this week, that may have changed. That is, it may have gone too far for the Republicans to be able to dictate a successor (like Laurence Silberman). Which may make mean Rove’s thoughts have changed.

But if Rove still feels like HE’D be safer with Gonzales gone, the Senators may have some leverage in this matter.

ANd consider: Rove too Coleman came out today calling for Gonzales’ ouster. If he’s a barometer (and I think he is), then I think we could at least get 66 on no confidence.

Here’s a list of the Republicans listed in this post who are also running for office in 2008:

GROUP 1:

Coleman, Norm- (R – MN)
Roberts, Pat- (R – KS)
Sununu, John E.- (R – NH)
Smith, Gordon H.- (R – OR)
Sessions, Jeff- (R – AL)
Graham, Lindsey- (R – SC)

GROUP 2:

Alexander, Lamar- (R – TN)
Collins, Susan M.- (R – ME)
Warner, John- (R – VA)

GROUP 3:

Stevens, Ted- (R – AK)
Domenici, Pete V.- (R – NM)

Looks like we might have a lot of leverage there if we were focus on writing LTE’s in local paper forums in their home states, or if their constituents pitched in and started hammering on them.

Apologies for OT posting, but I thought folks around here might be interested in this long, but deeply sourced story/profile (or is it hatchet-job?) of Waas:

http://www.washingtoncitypaper…..038;page=1

With regards to impeachment, has anyone on the judiciary committee or any other congresspeople/Senators ever uttered that word (impeachment, that is) with regard to Gonzo? I’ve only seen it mentioned on blogs. I’m surprised Schumer, Spector, and Leahy haven’t been alluding to it. Or have they?

Albert above mentions Karl Rove, and I wonder what his present take on this is.

I think the Republicans in general, and the White House especially, are in great danger here. If Abu G goes, there will have to be a new AG who can be confirmed by the Democratic Senate, and who will be far more reasonable than Abu G. And I think that will bust the logjam and lead to another Watergate.

If a new AG starts appointing independent prosecutors, releasing documents, responding to subpoenas (all the things Abu G is so good at â€gumming upâ€) then it’s over for this administration. And even if the dirty laundry is from the White House, that will still be bad for all the Republicans looking to get re-elected.

If there’s any way at all that Abu G can be left twisting slowly until more of the MSM are bored of the whole foul story, while Fox et al. claim this is just political spin and that Congress must stop pestering Abu G so that he can continue his vital work keeping this country (especially the kids!) safe, then that is what will happen.

I am not saying they will succeed in this, just that they are certainly pig-headed enough to try.

Self-Importance for Self-Importance Party – LOL!

Hmmm. Good analysis of the here-and-now, but a good politician will be thinking about what the landscape will look like in November 2008. The warrantless wiretapping scandal looks like it’s even worse than expected. If I were a Republican Senator up for re-election in 2008, I’d be wondering just how many more shoes are going to drop between now and the election. Then I’d ask myself, â€If I vote AGAINST removing Gonzales, and he ends up staying in office, what are the chances that yet another scandal will break, and my Democratic opponent will bludgeon me to death with my vote when we hit the campaign trail?†When you look at it from that perspective, it’s really a no-brainer.

Collins votes yes on no-confidence, no on impeachment. And gets loud huzzahs for ’fairness’ and ’balance’ and ’moderation’ from the Blethen family’s mouthpiece, the Portland Press Herald — because she’s a reliable vote to abolish the estate tax, and that’s all the Blethens care about.

If Domenici plans to retire (the conventional wisdom last time I checked) how does that that affect your calculus for predicting his votes on no confidence and impeachment?

Being from Missouri, I agree that Bond would vote for no confidence on Gonzo and I believe it’s very likely that he would vote for impeachment because he and Ashcroft have been buddies for a long time.

On the pessimistic side, I hate to sound like Idjo, but I’m not seeing much coverage of what to us is the bombshell from Comey. When I checked the news that day, it got almost no attention and I assumed the testimony was a dud. Only after seeking out the actual video did I get chills down my spine. Is there indication that Republican senators have actually changed position on Gonzales based on Comey? I still think we need a full bandwidth, 24/7 coverage bombshell from either Goodling or Ralston to turn the corner on this epic stonewalling effort.

On the optimistic side, if I were Schumer and I knew I had such a bombshell coming, a pre-bombshell no-confidence vote would be a brilliant chess move in terms of setting a trap for the 2008 election bids of all those endangered Republican incumbent senators. Get them to back up Gonzales based on the current atmosphere and then crucify them when broad-based public outrage sets in.

But broad-based outrage, shamefully, is damned hard to come by in this country. Katrina, Foley, Haggard and, oddly, the Dubay Ports thing … maybe Walter Reed … that’s about it for Bush debacles which have actual provoked real outrage on the American street. The slimiest sins of DeLay, Cheney, & Rove, Abu Graib, torture, Tillman & Lynch, wire-tapping, war-profiteering, corporate fraud, oil company price-gouging, Abramoff, Plame … none of these have really pierced the thick, callous moral skin of the television-addled average American.

… depressing.

I maintain that it’s a mistake to count on Maverick Johnnie- he’s missed some 50 senate votes in a row, why would he show up for this one?

Hi EW,

Good post!

One other calculation to take into account. By having a â€no confidence†vote first, Senator Schumer is giving Senators an out. Senators who may be politically vulnerable, internally (â€Rove payback is a bitchâ€) or externally (â€the voters don’t much like me anymore?â€), can vote â€yes†on â€no confidence†and then vote â€no†on impeachment and say that they did the right thing on voting for â€no confidenceâ€. They can explain that their vote was intended to put pressure on Gonzales to resign or for the President to fire him but that they didn’t vote for impeachment because that was all about politics. Unfortunately, the Clinton impeachment debacle has clearly cast an unfavorable pall over impeachment in the mind of the public. While this argument sounds weak, and it is weak, it at least gives recalcitrant Republicans something upon which they can point to as having done their job.

I suspect the political calculus is completely different now. The White House has hung onto Gonzales so long that now they can’t afford to let him go. The time for cutting a deal with the Senate so they could get a guy they’d want in place of Gonzales is long gone, I assume, unless the Democrats are content to â€get†Gonzales and let the other more important matters lie.

Norm Coleman and Lieberman are best buddies — I rather suspect that Lieberman might follow Norm’s lead on this. Moreover, Norm’s local money is not from the Religious Right, but from the circle in which the Heffelfinger Family is center point — Minnesota Old Money. Paulose is pay off to the Bachman side of the party — the Christian Coalition Folk.

I think Vonavitch of Ohio (sp?) could go for both no confidence as well as impeachment. Not running next year, and has apparently said just two terms, but the Dem got a nice margin last year in Ohio. Gonzo has some connections to the rare coin dealer (now in Jail) who did in the Ohio Republican Party.

Allard in Colarado is not running again — he might be a free spirit.

I agree with Reader of Tea Leaves as to how this can be spun — this is Terri Schivo all over again if you focus on the sanctity of the hospital sick room with a no visitors sign on the door. Remember 80% of Americans thought the spouse should hold the power over the sick room.

So what needs to be done — well if the no confidence resolution passes, and Goodling does not have a good day next week — then just remember it took about half a million letters and telegrams for impeachment landing on congress (the House) in the wake of the Saturday Night Massacre to get a mass of resolutions in the hopper demanding impeachment. If I remember rightly it was over a hundred resolutions in the first day Congress was back after the Massacre. So we need a deluge of letters to congresscritters toward the end of next week. Maybe someone can start a mass Internet Petition Campaign in addition to snail mail letters. Perhaps a downloadable form ought to be created that could be printed out and used by name collecters, district by district. Back in 1974 I stood on the downtown Mall wearing a high hat saying Impeach Now, Sign Here, for about three hours with a clipboard collecting names — and I had them lined up to sign. Today I have one click access to E-Mail lists for every activist DFL’er in the 5th District, and could easily access state mailing lists.

So let’s get organized!!!

â€This thing is spin-proof: a frightened wife called for help to protect her extremely ill husband from thugs. There is absolutely no way to ’spin’ that story, and anyone who tries is a fool.â€

Good point, RoTL, however we don’t have the Dems making this a big deal yet. Even Schumer’s and DiFis statements today did not get to the crux of the Comey testimony. Maybe if it catches fire in the blogosphere there’s a possibility it may get some traction. The one good thing that I saw today was Kelly O’Donnell directly asking Bush.

I hope the Dems make a real big deal about this – not only the attempt to use an incapacitated Ashcroft in hospital to sign off on an illegal domestic spying â€program†but that the President was directly involved in trying to make an end run.

Unless a shitstorm is created around this we are likely to fall into the next story mode like the no-confidence vote and the bigger issue of the President directly involved in a possible criminal act to subvert the constitution will go by the wayside.

I hope Schumer, Leahy, etc focus on the bigger picture – the criminality and politicization of justice – rather than just getting AbuGs scalp. No doubt that could be helpful in getting a more independent AG.

obsessed: But what was the story on Schiavo? I’ve never understood that whole story.

You shouldn’t feel like you missed much, as it was an especially sordid episode of Americans politics. Without going into the details, the Republicans overestimated the general public’s support for the insane right-to-life rhetoric of the xtianists. They drew a parallel between a fetus and the still-living-husk of what used to be a woman, and decided to interfere with her husband’s decision to remove the life support from the body his wife used to animate. Bill Frist famously watched a videotape of Terry’s shell and exercised his (unlicensed) medical expertise to diagnose her as having a chance of making a full recovery. Of course, CAT-scans showed that her brain had atrophied by something like 80%, eliminating all possibility of conscious thought- but why bother with the scientific tools of medicine when you have faith?

There was a circus in Florida, and then in Washington. Again, omitting most of the details, the GOP revealed themselves to be craven hypocritical liars, playing to the lowest common denominator. Everyone execept the xtianists were disgusted by the whole thing on an intensely personal family level, and anyone who had previously lost a loved one or been faced with a similar decision was immediately converted to a Democrat-for-life.

So, Veritas78 is saying that this is another one of heinously wrong actions that you don’t need to be a PoliSci/Econ junkie to appreciate. The reason more people aren’t outraged about the USA firing scandal is that they have the attention span of gnats, and it’s too complicated for them to â€get it†in their gut. But here, the President ordered his men to harass the Attorney General, in his hospital bed, against his wife’s wishes, while he was almost too drugged to tell them no!

Against his wife’s wishes! While he was in the hospital! The program was illegal! The President ordered them to do it!

Those are sound bytes to bring down a presidency.

tekel,

who said the President ordered them to do it?

readerofTeaLeaves, Mrs. Ashcroft deserves the thanks of our nation. I suspect her husband knew her to be trustworthy enough to share with her his concerns about what the White House was up to and she was rightfully concerned with the power play by C&G. I know nothing about Mrs. Ashcroft’s politics but she may or may not totally agree with her husband’s. I would like to hear from her.

Maybe insignificant – maybe not:

Kelly O’Donnell occasionally posts on the Daily Nightly blog at the MSNBC website. That blog is read by the exec producers and editors, and I’m fairly certain that they read all comments submitted. I had lambasted her for posting a vapid piece about the Bush/Cheney gift records and challenged her to earn her journalist paycheck with questions about Bush’s directive to Card/Gonzales to coerce Ashcroft. Lo and behold, the next day she did so.

Perhaps heaping a lot of praise her way will protect her from her boss -Russert’s ire and encourage her to keep asking.

There is also a new feature of that blog called Nuthin’ But Net which is a not bad web links roundup of hard news – leans left with a few not bad right links – not much, if any wingnuttery so far (haven’t seen any links to Drudge).

â€Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA): Specter will water down the no confidence language, then vote yes on it. But, since Specter has never met a courageous decision he didn’t run from, he’ll almost certainly vote â€present†or some such nonsense on impeachment.†— emptywheel

Where do I put money on this?? Ms. Wheeler, your analytical skills are peerless!

tekel,

dry out.