Specter tells Gonzalez you're going to testify----hot diggety dog.

[Justice Is Comin]

I hope some of you Specter doubters will start to feel a little better now. Not only is he bringing Gonzalez before the judiciary committee but it's going to be an open hearing. I'm predicting Specter is going to rip this spying coverup wide open.



<clip>


But GOP Sen. Sam Brownback (news, bio, voting record) of Kansas said, "There was no discussion in anything that I was around that gave the president a broad surveillance authority with that resolution."

The committee chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., said senators will examine that issue and other legal questions in hearings scheduled for early February. Gonzales' testimony is being sought because he is the principal spokesman for the administration's position, Specter said.

The attorney general was White House counsel when Bush initiated the program, a role that could raise issues of attorney-client privilege in seeking his testimony. A message left with the Justice Department on Sunday was not immediately returned.

Asked on CBS's "Face the Nation" if Gonzales had agreed to appear, Specter said, "Well, I didn't ask him if he had agreed. I told him we were holding the hearings and he didn't object. I don't think he has a whole lot of choice on testifying."


Meaning come willingly or I'll issue the "S" word. I'm liking Specter more every day.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060108/ap_on_go_co/domestic_spying :applause:

[fooj]

1. IMO, Specter is sick of their bullshit. Enough is enough.

Peace.

[Justice Is Comin]

2. So right Foojerino

This has got to be driving Bush up the wall. He thought his little speech as if saying, don't worry about it, it was nothin--was going to make this a one day story. :rofl: And Specter is supposed to be one he could most count on in the band of brothers.

You know the only thing that is "delaying" Bush's eventual unequivocal nailing to the cross on this, is that he didn't deny doing it. If he had, the leaks already would have put his call for impeachment all over the front pages.

Did that occur to you?

[fooj]

3. Point taken.

Peace.

[villager]

4. trying to atone karmically -- just a wee bit -- for his Warren Commission

coverup?

[BuyingThyme]

5. Specter is a shill. He won't even put Gonzales under oath.

[Justice Is Comin]

6. Would you rather he NOT be

going on the major news shows and saying he's going to be having these hearings?

Would you rather he didn't have the hearings?

Would you rather he call some Bush ass licker as his witness?

Would you rather he be a Frist?

Oh and add this one: Would you rather he have the hearing in the cloak room with coffee and donuts and no C-Span?



These are going to be televised hearings. The whole world will hear them stumbling for explanations. Don't forget he's not the only one that's going to be asking questions either.

Give the man a break. What do you want from a republican head of the judiciary committee? You're going to like the "S" man when this is all layed out.

[BuyingThyme]

9. Arlen Specter is a Bush ass licker.

That's what he's done his entire career. The ONLY reason he reached out for this issue is so he can control it.

You're drinking it, and it's not even a hot day.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=5663753
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=5648330
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=5677881

And only God knows how you came to think Alberto Gonzales is something other than a Bush ass licker.

[Justice Is Comin]

11. I think we went around this bush once before.

I wonder what you're going to say when his efforts make this as big as Abramoff.

I think we clearly know who believes Specter has integrity here and who doesn't. One of us is going to be wrong. Care to wager?

[BuyingThyme]

12. You've already lost.

[Justice Is Comin]

15. Well then you should be very anxious to bet.

I'm ready and waiting.

[BuyingThyme]

17. Okay, nothing will happen by the end of January.

$100.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=5643002#5643278

Since Arlen is going to sit on this until February at the earliest, I win.

How would you like to pay? Do you have PayPal?

Arlen has already defused the situation for Bush, and you're still a big Arlen fan.

Double or nothing?

[Justice Is Comin]

21. You gotta

do better than that. :rofl: That's like six foot tall, short, bald headed, about six foot tall and black hair.

[BuyingThyme]

22. Nice retreat.

[Justice Is Comin]

25. That's thanks to that peckerhead

Hastert, not Specter. This may still be ripping Bush a new one in April yet with all that I expect to come out. This won't be fast and painless. This will be slow and painful.

[BuyingThyme]

27. Hastert has nothing to do with Specter.

[donheld]

7. If there are any good republicans left they'd better get a hold on their

party, and take it back quickly. If all the corruption gets out it could destroy the republicans for a long time to come.

[Zhade]

8. Maybe he's looking for a "magic bullet" excuse to vote no?

:evilgrin:

[oasis]

10. Bushco has overplayed its hand. No easy bailout on this one.

Snotty McCleland will be ordering extra shots of expresso with his coffee.:nopity: :hangover::nopity:

[incapsulated]

13. Prediction:

Gonzalez will say he that can't testify, at least not in open session, about such matters which would endanger a)!!NATIONAL SECURITY!! b)Privacy rights (no, they have no sense of hypocricy or irony) or c)some other bullshit reason.

[Richard Steele]

14. So, Arlen is some kind of hero now? Pfft!

Bullshit.

He's a politician who knows how to cover his ass.

He faces whichever way the wind blows him;
he's a poll-chaser and a camp follower.

The man is a genuine, old-fashioned fence-straddler;
he is a bland, beige remora upon the body politic.

But don't get me wrong: this is VERY good news!
When an amoral little turd like Specter actually chooses a side,
that's clear evidence that the other side has already lost.

I grew up in PA- I know this man, and I have seen his work.
If he is making noises about "looking into it',
please rest assured that it is already OVER.

[Justice Is Comin]

18. What you're not getting the import of

is that this will let our judiciary members attack him like sharks after chum in the water. Once he's called the hearing, the chips are on the table and they have to fall where they may. If it was "over, he certainly wouldn't be putting the ball over the center of the plate belt high for our salivating dems to hit it to Mars.

I posted a report of a judiciary session Spector held a couple years ago and he wrote a scathing report that he was being stonewalled then about surveillance. This was before any of the news came out that it was also on Americans.

Specter has been had and he is taking personal revenge. Believe it or not, but it is the fact.

[Dogmudgeon]

20. Revenge? Yes.

I wrote more about this below. But I think it's true that a lot of old scores will be settled.

And how much luckier can he get, than to be able to crush deserving enemies?

--p!

[Richard Steele]

26. Believe it or not? NOT. You are very mistaken.

But that is a minor point, really.

We both agree that this is a very good sign...because it IS!
Why waste time quibbling over differences of opinion,
when we should be celebrating together?

This is a very, very, VERY seriously GOOD SIGN!

You and I should be "high-fiving" over a moderately-priced bottle of domestic champagne!

[gumby]

16. Prediction:

Specter pees on his own shoe.

Main Stream Media pees all over itself regaling the story of "centrist" Specter.

Then The Media and Specter are off on a new adventure. Gonzales who?

[Dogmudgeon]

19. Arlen Specter: Freddie Krueger to the GOP

The guy has recently come close to dying -- does anyone doubt that he wants to end his career with a bang? He's been motivated by his conscience for half a decade now. He's endorsed a couple of Democrats. He's made peace with many more of them. The screech-monkey Right tried to kick him out in the last two primary battles he fought. The Pennsylvania GOP is scared to death of him.

This isn't to say that I think he's "one of us". He's not. He's a Republican. His conscience will not match our consciences, no matter how hard we try to stretch the definition. But he's not a neo-Con and he's not a psychopath, and he clearly lost his taste for toadying some years back.

He may also be sensing that the national GOP is undergoing a well-deserved breakdown, and this may be his only chance to really influence the direction in which the party develops. He was pretty much cut out of both the "Reagan Revolution" and "Gingrich Revolution" -- and don't think he doesn't remember the feeling the steel blade made entering his back.

No, Arlen Specter won't be tamed by we Democrats, but the Republicans have an even more serious problem on their hands -- the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee is a man the New Right messed with time and time again -- and now, there's a scandal afoot. Once again, it proves how stupid arrogance makes some people. You'd think that some of the power-mad bastards would have regarded Specter as their "disciplinarian". Instead, they thought they were invincible, and will be facing their worst political nightmare.

Their hopes are not difficult to divine. They're praying that Arlen Specter die real soon, before the blade of the guillotine is sharpened and its lunette is replaced with one large enough to accomadate their thick, fat necks.

You know, there have been times when I burned with (political) hatred for Arlen Specter. Clarence Thomas v. Anita Hill, for instance. But these days, he's made for some damned fine political theater. And our other Senator, Santorum, will be the recipient of a political tarring, feathering, and burning at the stake. How often do you get two senators from your least-favorite political party, each facing a professional and personal exordium, chosing to die as either a coward (Santorum) or a hero (Specter)?

But only one of them has been through the resurrection route more than once. The Blow-Dried Pimpernel is too busy sucking up to a disgusted electorate to figure out what's happening. My money's on Pennsylvania's favorite transplanted Kansas City Jewboy -- Arlen Specter. May he keep the seat in the Senate warm until 2010 -- when Pennsylvania gets its second Democratic Senator.

--p!

[BuyingThyme]

23. The Bush Crime Family put Specter in this term so that he

would be available for just this sort of mission.

Is it really so hard to understand?

Do people really think the Bushes put him in their because he's honest and non-partisan? Come on, people.

[Justice Is Comin]

24. Yup this is an angry Specter.

He could have low profiled this and relegated the democrats to hold democrat only hearings in the basement. This has more legs now than a centipede.

Already Brownbeck is following the same path and scheduling to hold intelligence committee hearings in his committee. This is going to get huge.