{"id":10829,"date":"2007-05-17T15:12:57","date_gmt":"2007-05-17T19:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10829.html"},"modified":"2007-05-17T15:12:57","modified_gmt":"2007-05-17T19:12:57","slug":"a-no-confidence-vote-in-gonzales-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/a-no-confidence-vote-in-gonzales-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A no-confidence vote in Gonzales"},"content":{"rendered":"

About a month ago, after the White House refused to even consider replacing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Roll Call reported<\/a> that Senate Dems were “seriously considering bringing a resolution to the floor expressing no confidence in Gonzales.”<\/p>\n

A senior leadership source told Roll Call the measure would be non-binding — Congress can’t force the president to fire members of his cabinet — but it would a) make it abundantly, officially<\/i> clear that Gonzales had lost the support of Congress; and b) put Senate Republicans on the spot, either standing with an incompetent and helplessly dishonest AG or standing against him.<\/p>\n

And then … nothing. The idea seemed to quickly vanish, and no one’s really talked about the idea since. That is, until today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At a press conference moments ago, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) called on the Senate to hold a no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.<\/p>\n

FEINSTEIN: I join with Sen. Schumer in saying I think the time has come for the Senate to express its will. And that will is simply to say that we lack confidence in Attorney General Gonzales. I don’t like saying this. I very much regret saying it. I want to say exactly the opposite. But in view of what I know, I can’t.<\/p>\n

Whether it was the torture memo, whether it’s Guantanamo, whether it’s Geneva Convention, whether it’s U.S. Attorneys, whether it’s I don’t know I can’t recall, a department as major as this, I don’t think the American people are well served. I’m hopeful this can be worked out. But there comes a time when you have to say what you think, and this is what I think.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, what happens now?
\n
\nOnce a resolution is introduced, Senate Dems should flock to it fairly quickly. Three Senate Republicans have already called for Gonzales’ ouster, and they’ll likely endorse the measure, if not sign on as co-sponsors. The White House will denounce it, of course, but on this, the president doesn’t get a vote.<\/p>\n

It would almost certainly put most of the GOP caucus in an awkward position. Criticizing Gonzales is one thing, calling on the president to replace him is another, but voting for a no-confidence resolution is one step shy of impeachment. Will the Republican caucus embrace a man already exposed as a liar and probable law-breaker? Does the GOP dare filibuster? Would they have the votes to keep it up?<\/p>\n

Perhaps the bigger question is what the White House does. Let’s say the resolution passes, which I think is pretty likely. Would the president keep an Attorney General that officially<\/i> lost the confidence of Congress? <\/p>\n

I wouldn’t put it past him<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One White House adviser (who asked not to be ID’ed talking about sensitive issues) said the support reflected Bush’s own view that a Gonzales resignation would embolden the Dems to go after other targets — like Karl Rove. “This is about Bush saying, ‘Screw you’,” said the adviser.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About a month ago, after the White House refused to even consider replacing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Roll Call reported that Senate Dems were “seriously considering bringing a resolution to the floor expressing no confidence in Gonzales.” A senior leadership source told Roll Call the measure would be non-binding — Congress can’t force the president […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10829\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}