Editorial pages from sea to shining sea call for Gonzales to walk the plank.
Republican justice, in more ways than one. This is from today’s Seattle Times …
Former Washington state Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance acknowledged Tuesday that he contacted then-U.S. Attorney John McKay to inquire about the status of federal investigations into the 2004 governor’s race while the outcome was still in dispute.
…
“Republican activists were furious because they felt that you had a Republican secretary of state [Sam Reed], a Republican county prosecutor in Norm Maleng and a Republican U.S. attorney, but still they saw the governorship slipping away, and they were just angry,” Vance said.
All those Republicans and they still couldn’t get any trumped up voter fraud indictments. No wonder they were angry.
Of course, these Republican officeholders — McKay, Reed and Maleng — understand their responsibilities and did the right thing.
Big breaking news: Senate votes to allow debate on proposal for withdrawal from Iraq!
Update: Here are the nine GOP Senators who voted against debate today.
Senate requests interviews with Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, and Miers’ deputy, William Kelley.
Winger v. Winger …
From the Journal OpEd page …
At the time, President Clinton presented the move as something perfectly ordinary: “All those people are routinely replaced,” he told reporters, “and I have not done anything differently.” In fact, the dismissals were unprecedented: Previous Presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, had both retained holdovers from the previous Administration and only replaced them gradually as their tenures expired. This allowed continuity of leadership within the U.S. Attorney offices during the transition.
Bush I Assistant AG, Stuart Gerson, in today’s WaPo online chat …
It is customary for a President to replace U.S. Attorneys at the beginning of a term. Ronald Reagan replaced every sitting U.S. Attorney when he appointed his first Attorney General. President Clinton, acting through me as Acting AG, did the same thing, even with few permanent candidates in mind.
The Journal OpEd also continues their penchant for peddling ‘voter fraud’ falsehoods.
Get this: McCain is now beginning to tout his own courage for supporting escalation — in a political campaign web video.
Good eye, or good ear, from TPM Reader JB. Apparently, the White House and Alberto Gonzales are so miffed with Kyle Sampson for doing the whole Attorney Purge on his own that they’re letting him stay on the job — from which he supposedly resigned on Monday — indefinitely as he “goes job hunting.”
President Bush: “I do have confidence in AG Al Gonzales. I talked to him this morning, and we talked about his need to go up to Capitol Hill and make it very clear to members in both political parties why the Justice Department made the decision it made.”
Once they come up with a story they can stick to, I guess Gonzales can go up to the Hill and tell the senators what it is.
Update: Here’s video.
Lawyer to the Netroots Adam Bonin on the campaign reform movement: “It’s not that we don’t trust reform; it’s that we don’t trust the reformers. With good reason.”