Worse than Watergate, part II--Robert Scheer

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A good read from Robert Scheer.
There was a time, in the not too distant past, where the citizens of this country would be demanding Gonzales resign and demanding also that the President be held accountable.
However, we now live in an era of tabloid style news and a multitude of other distraction from the corporate mainstream media. People claim to be "too busy" to understand what is happening to our country but for example, many people know where pro ballplayers went to high school and many others know detailed events of our Lohan/Spears/Nicole pop culture.
Ask the next person you talk with who their 2 Senators and House Representative is.
Ask them how many branches of Government there are.
Forget about at the State level.
Case closed.

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Worse than Watergate, part II
Real culprit in illegal eavesdropping scandal is in the White House
Robert Scheer

Let me offer a word in defense of Alberto R. Gonzales now that a majority of U.S. senators, including six Republicans, are poised to demand his resignation as the nation's top law enforcement officer. The breaking point was last week's revelation by former Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey that Gonzales paid a rude nighttime visit to then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's intensive-care hospital room.

The goal of bursting into the hospital and alarming Ashcroft's wife, in a scene reminiscent of "The Godfather," was to obtain the signature of the semiconscious attorney general upon a document renewing an electronic eavesdropping program that Ashcroft's Justice Department had concluded was not legal.

Gonzales had lied about this secret program in Senate testimony when he claimed that it was not regarded as controversial within the administration -- actually, it was so controversial that officials at Justice, from the attorney general to the FBI director, had threatened to resign in protest if it were renewed.

But don't blame Gonzales -- he's just another lightweight zealot exploited by the Cheney White House. Not that Gonzales isn't a thoroughly loathsome character deserving of Senate rebuke and worse. He has been party to dragging this nation down in the eyes of the world, ordering and justifying torture while shredding the limitations on imperious governance that have been the hallmark of American liberty. Yet while the man has been associated with a pernicious assault on our freedoms, he has never been the independent actor, but rather a dutiful toady carrying out the wishes of a tightly monitored White House with the blessings of the president.

CONTINUED:
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=22365


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