What does a "vote of no confidence" do other than embarras

[napi21]

the guy they voted on? I've heard of it before, but don't remember it ever being used. From all the BS I've heard oln TV, it still doesn't force Gonzo out the door!

[TahitiNut]

1. It's impossible to embarrass someone incapable of feeling shame.

A waste. Toothless posturing.

[acmavm]

2. Pretty much nothing. Especially since nothing gets through to this horrid

nasty lying little specimen. He just sits there with that shit-eating grin and under his breath he's repeating that now-famous Dick Cheney retort "GO F**K YOURSELF" to the American people.

[BuyingThyme]

3. Two possibilities:

Either it gives people like Pat Leahy an opportunity to pretend that they've taken it as far as they can, or it gives people like Pat Leahy political leverage for taking it further.

But going by what he's been saying lately, I think Pat's looking for the coward's way out.

[tiptoe]

4. Allows Senators unwilling to confront * with calls for AG-resignation to dissociate 'selves from AG.

Arlen Specter probably sets the tenor for other Republicans:

...
SPECTER: It is ironic in a sense that the former deputy attorney general should be with the Judiciary Committee today, on the same day that we learn of the resignation of the present deputy attorney general. Earlier today, I wrote to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty congratulating him on his service with the Department of Justice, and wishing him well in his new career. I did not say in the note to him what I'm about to say, but I think he found it difficult -- really, impossible -- to continue to serve in the Department of Justice as a professional, which Paul McNulty is, because it's embarrassing for a professional to work for the Department of Justice today.

We had the attorney general before a hearing. The testimony he gave was hard to understand, incredible in a sense -- to say that he was not involved in discussions and not involved in deliberations, when his three top deputies said he was and the documentary evidence supported that. It is the decision of Mr. Gonzales as to whether he stays or goes. But it is hard to see how the Department of Justice can function and perform its important duties with Mr. Gonzales remaining where he is. And beyond Mr. Gonzales's decision, it's a matter for the President as to whether the President will retain the attorney general or not. I think that the operation of the executive branch is a decision for the President. I don't want him telling me how to vote in the Senate on separation of powers, and I'm not going to tell him or make a recommendation to him as to what he ought to do with Mr. Gonzales.
...
Source: Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on U.S. Attorney Firings May 15, 2007

A vote of No Confidence is a way for Specter and other poor-sighted, elephant-tail-clinging "follower" Republican senators to express an opinion on Mr. Gonzales WITHOUT directly telling or recommending to * what he ought to do with Mr. Gonzales.

If Specter supports a vote of No Confidence in the AG, many other Repubs will follow suit and join Democrats in doing the same. The White House will then be politically isolated from Senate support on the issue of Mr. Gonzales...in a context, too, of other criminal bombshells potentially to drop with the upcoming testimony of an immunized-Monica Goodling (as well as, possibly, Susan Ralston). All will be laid-groundwork for a possible conviction in the Senate should an impeachment effort go forth, IF Gonzo doesn't resign or isn't fired. On the other hand, Greg Palast advises:

Don’t Fire Gonzales

...
We’ve been here before. Gonzales is getting Libby’d. Takes the bullet for Karl Rove and the White House. If you wondered why the Republican jackals like the sinister Senator Specter piled on Gonzales — it’s because they were told to.

These guys learned from Richard Nixon. In 1973, when Nixon was getting hammered over Watergate, he threw the Senate Committee his Attorney General, a schmuck named Kleindeist. Famously, Nixon’s own Rove, a devious creep named John Erlichman, told Nixon to leave the Attorney General, “twisting slowly in the wind.”

Rove and Bush are doing the Nixon Twist on Gonzales.

Look, I have no sympathy for Alberto the Doomed. He’s guilty of a crime I employed in racketeering cases: “Willful failure to know.” It’s a kind of fraud; Alberto was going way out of his way to not know what he had to know, that Rove and the President were toying with prosecutors.

Gonzales is their glove-puppet. Why fire him? The nation watches these hearings and wants to kill something. But why shoot the puppet? It’s time to fire the puppeteer. Eh, Mr. Rove?

(Monica Goodling, Susan Ralston, emails, et al for Mr. Rove)