legal strategy for torturing prisoners, to stand on principle and resign if Bush (or the real president) orders him to fire the special prosecutor. After they got rid of Nixon A.G. John Mitchell, who was filthy with Watergate, there were some principled people put in place at the Justice Dept.--because Nixon's gig was bleeding badly--Richardson, Ruckelshaus and Cox.
Alberto Gonzales is not like them. He is a Bush Cartel toady--and his fingers are particularly dirty with torture (Guantanamo) and death (capitol punishment Bush-style). I can't imagine anything he would balk at, even treason.
On the other hand, he or any of them might well push some women and children into the icy waters of the North Atlantic, to get themselves a seat on a Titanic life boat, if you know what I mean.
As for Bush's "pod people" (brainless repeaters of Rove "talking points") in Congress, what can I say? Back in the Watergate days, we had some Republicans in Congress who actually believed in lawful government, and thought for themselves. Sad to think of it. (Did you know that Howard Baker is now Bush's ambassador to Japan? I wonder what he's thinking over there in his kimono, sipping his saki.)
But, like I said, these rotten cowards who sent 20 year olds into hell to fight for their huge tax cuts, their theft of billions of taxpayer dollars, their war profiteering, their global corporate piracy, and their filthy, bloody hunger for power, will switch allegiance in a moment, to save their own skins. We have that going for us--as to impeachment--the empty viciousness, the utter hypocrisy, and the naked greed, of the majority in Congress.
Same goes for other Bushites. I don't see anything in them that could hold them together. They remind me of playground bullies--with the tenuous power that thugs have. Their power is not grounded in conviction, loyalty or principle--though the news monopolies give them a big trumpet with which to bray about their "morality." They're really just opportunists, most of them; willing to beat up on anybody (gays, blacks, Arabs, women, the French) whenever their gang leaders nod their heads. And I can see them sniveling, and whining, and pointing fingers, and just crumbling, in the face of honest people--people with inner strength--telling the truth.
They also--the toadies and powermongers in the White House, and their "pod people" in Congress--have very little real support among Americans. We've had three illegitimate elections in a row. 2000, 2002, and 2004. The accumulated lack of "consent of the governed" is becoming a mighty tide, I think, rumbling beneath the surface. People can hardly believe their ears, what-all's coming out of DC these days--privatizing Social Security ("all the better to loot your safety net, my dear!"), hurting the little people in bankruptcies, the medical prescription farce, a trillion dollar deficit, higher and higher gas prices, and threatening more war. The discontent is very, very serious. And even the news monopolies are seeing it--in polls spanning the last year--though they are not reporting on it much.
60% to 70% of the American people disapprove of every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic--not to mention Bush himself now sunk to about 40% (and hovering at 50% or less for nearly two years straight). (These numbers are just dismal and unprecedented for a "war president" who supposedly got a "mandate" in '04.)
Something else they rarely report on. Nearly 60% of Americans opposed the Iraq war BEFORE the invasion. (I will never forget that stat.) And after the initial fighting was over (when US troops were at greatest risk), that number went right back up to nearly 60%, where it stayed throughout the election. And I think it's about 80% today. This is an extremely unpopular war, and, when you combine it with all else, you have to figure Republicans in Congress are getting a bit nervous (even if they do have Diebold on their side!).
So, WHO KNOWS? But I think it's good to remember--even though the circumstances are different--that, in 1973, when Nixon had been re-elected, and the Watergate burglary seemed long forgotten as a minor news story in the back pages of the WaPo, there didn't seem a chance in hell that he would be gone the FOLLOWING YEAR. Not a chance!
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The answer to the stink in Washington DC is restoring our right to vote, by throwing Bushite electronic voting machine companies--Diebold, ES&S and brethren--out of the election business NOW--or, at the least, achieving some measure of election transparency with paper ballot backups, no secret programming code and strict auditing. The only place where we can get that done is in state/local jurisdictions, where the authority over election systems still resides, and where ordinary people still have some say. See the DU Forum "2004 Election Results and Discussion" for information and action ideas:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=203http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=203
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