A no-confidence vote in Gonzales?

April 24, 2007

According to a Republican with close ties to the White House, Bush and Gonzales are in denial about getting a new Attorney General. “They’re the only two people on the planet Earth who don’t see it.”

And yet, there’s a small problem: Gonzales is still there. Slate recently created a “Gonzo-meter” to gauge the likelihood of the AG’s ouster. Late last week, after Gonzales’ ridiculous performance in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the “Gonzo-meter” hit 95%. Yesterday, after the president publicly praised the AG, it slipped to 85%. Today, it slipped again, to 75%.

“Al says he’s staying,” Slate said. “The president says Al is staying. They love each other, and no amount of GOP pressure to break them up is going to come between them. In fact, like Romeo and Juliet, it seems that the more they are pushed to break up, the stronger their love flourishes. It’s beautiful, really. Dysfunctional but beautiful.”

Congress isn’t in a position to fire Gonzales, no matter how much bipartisan support there is to replace him. Like the U.S. Attorneys Bush purged, Gonzales serves at the pleasure of the president. And with the president saying, “Screw you,” what can anyone do about it?

As it turns out, congressional Dems may have come up with a “screw you” of their own.

Roll Call reports today:

With Attorney General Alberto Gonzales vowing to remain in his job and President Bush standing by him, Senate Democratic leaders are seriously considering bringing a resolution to the floor expressing no confidence in Gonzales, according to a senior leadership source.

“I don’t think [Gonzales] can survive, no matter what the president says,” said the source. The vote would be nonbinding and have no substantive impact, but it would force all Republican Senators into the politically uncomfortable position of saying publicly whether they continue to support Gonzales in the wake of the scandal surrounding the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. Democratic leaders have not yet set an exact time frame for when they would bring such a resolution to the floor.

This is exactly the kind of vote the Republicans used to schedule all the time before they lost their majority — the kind the minority doesn’t want to see.

It would certainly put the GOP caucus in an awkward position. Several have either explicitly or implicitly called for Gonzales’ ouster, but plenty more insist that decision rests with the president. A no-confidence vote would force them to take a side. Given last week’s reaction, I don’t think Dems would have any trouble picking up a dozen or so Republican votes, which would be enough to break a filibuster.

Of course, would the president still keep an Attorney General that officially lost the confidence of Congress? Time will tell.

“Congress isn’t in a position to fire Gonzales, no matter how much bipartisan support there is to replace him.”

Umm.

Impeach.

Them all.

  • “Of course, would the president still keep an Attorney General that officially lost the confidence of Congress?”

    Bush might try to keep him even if Gonzo was impeached and convicted. Rules don’t apply to royalty and monarchy. Never forget that. Clearly Gonzo knows too much to be let go. Unlike Libby who’s situation they lost control of, but who will get a pardon for sure, Gonzo is the boy-president’s fixer.

    A special prosecutor looking into the firings might easily change the framework of investigation, but I can’t imagine Bush abandoning Gonzo if only not to give the Dems a trophy. Like Libby, Gonzo knows he will be taken care of eventually, even though he won’t be rewarded with a supreme court nomination. He will take all the punishment and portray himself a martyr for the cause.

  • What bubba said. It seems to me that the president’s refusal to replace the attorney general, despite the hobbling of the DoJ that his continued presence creates, indicates a willful disregard of the effective adminstration of justice at the federal level. I’m no lawyer, but it seems to me also that that kind of willful disregard in a president of the United States can convincingly be called nonfeasance.

    Isn’t this exactly the kind of misdemeanor the Framers meant when they were talking about impeachment?

  • I don’t suppose there’s a way to de-fund the Office of the Attorney General, while providing for the rest of DOJ’s operations?

    Trying as much would be worth it just for Reid being able to say, “Let the guys he really works for–the RNC–pay his expenses.”

  • I’m with Bubba: Inpeach them all if they don’t understand the basic truth of democracy, that elections have consequences. Last Sunday our local paper had pictures of all of the young and not so young people who have died in this senseless war, just from our small corner of the world. It was stunning because it took up most of the front page. We lost two just last week.. To blazes with these animals; they don’t deserve to abuse the public trust for five more minutes, let alone another two years.

  • Gonzales is guilty of a crime. The BBC is reporting it and they have conclusive evidence including over 500 emails from Rove himself…part of the ‘missing’ emails. The book “Armed Madhouse” contains all the incriminating evidence that would put these people in jail. Why the BBC is being ignored by our MSM is treasonable. The evidence is there and the congress is wanting a vote of no confidence in someone who should be in jail. Just laughable except it is so infuriating. They are jumping too quick and should investigate Gonzales in light of this evidence coming from the BBC.

  • Even Tom Delay has a good standard for Impeachment (from Think Progress): “…I looked it up while we were driving over here, the definition of treason, it’s the betrayal of trust. I have never in my adult life, nor in my understanding of history, seen something so blatantly outrageous….”

    Now Duck Felay was talking about Reid and Pelosi, not Abu, Bush and Cheneygirl. But according to the Delay Standard, Abu, Bush and Cheneypuss have all betrayed the trust of the American people, and are guilty of treason. That is an Impeachable offense.

    Impeach.

  • Re: Gonzo no confidence

    Well, it’s a start. After that, how about no confidence votes on Cheney and Bush. Investigations can be stonewalled, impeachment would be a high hurdle, how about governing by “no confidence” votes for the next year and a half.

  • Well I guess we have consensus here. It’s time to impeach. It’s too bad about the Congress and its corporate donors. It’s incredible to me that the Republicans bent the law to impeach Clinton for an affair, and Bush has looted the government, lied us into a war, lied to the people at every turn, and ignored all of his professional responsibilities. Somehow Bush is untouchable, as though he walks on water, and yest he and all the people around him are so sleazy. Go figure.

  • I for one am perfectly happy keeping Gonzales in place. He’s under attack for policies which clearly weren’t his idea, and so replacing him won’t make any real difference. They’ll just find another rubberstamp to do what he’s told, and wouldn’t allow a freethinker to do a good job in any case.. And yet Gonzo’s such a stain on the entire administration that it just keeps the heat on all of them.

    Any intelligent crooked President would have written him off as a scapegoat awhile ago while secretly assuring him that he’d be taken care of. Only the dummies in this Whitehouse would actually want to keep him around. Nixon knew how to shed his deadweight advisors, and was really only reluctant to do so because they were bright guys and he needed them. Things fell apart when he didn’t have Haldeman and the others around to do his dirty work and scare people. But Gonzo was a patsy from day one and never added anything. For me, the biggest sign of their delusional thinking is that they’ve confused stubborness with strategy.

  • For what it’s worth, cabinet officers can be impeached.

    (Paraphrased from that convenient but useful source we all hate to love…Wikipedia…)

    The Constitution grants to the House the power to impeach “The President, the Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States.” Among the 17 officials who have been impeached in the U.S. is one cabinet officer, William W. Belknap (Secretary of War). He resigned before his trial, and was later acquitted. Allegedly most of those who voted to acquit him believed that his resignation had removed their jurisdiction.

  • Keeping a Brownie in the news cycle who keeps getting those “heckuva job” comments from Bush isn’t all bad. The drip drip drip of negative press contributes to eventually reaching that critial mass necessary for impeachment.

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