Journal pudge's Journal: No One Is Right But Me! 5
I watched the Sunday shows today and none of them -- Fox News Sunday, Meet the Press, This Week -- could get the story right about Alberto Gonzales and Friday's memo. Everyone I saw -- including conservatives like George Will -- got it wrong. They all said that Gonzales appeared to have conflicting stories, which is simply false if you read the transcript.
Jamie posted the transcript, highlighting the areas in question. Oddly, I think he believes the transcript proves me wrong, when nothing could be further from the truth. Jamie's highlighted areas show that he was claiming, quite specifically, to be uninvolved in "the process of determining who were the weak performers." And this memo does not, in any way, contradict that claim, as the meeting it refers to happened after that process took place.
Gonzales never stated or implied he was not involved in the actual firing of the attorneys, which is what this meeting was about. He only stated he was not involved in the process of determining which people would be on the list of people to be fired.
I don't know why no one but me -- and Gonzales' JD spokesman quoted in the original story -- seems capable of understanding this simple and clear fact.
Smoke but no fire. (Score:1)
This is no Monica Gate. Whereas President Clinton argued semantics over populist definition for sexual relations, some (still dressed in vigilante apparel) would have us believe Mr. Gonzalez drew the same length of cord for himself. Hardly.
Either way, it's a slow newsday on slashdot, a
"The big lie", all over again (Score:2)
It's interesting that in all the brouhaha Gonzales hasn't done the obvious: punish the people who made a "mistake" in determining "underperforming" attorneys [tennessean.com], and give the attorneys their jobs back. That would put an end to the whole mess, except for a few people muttering about how they "only fixed it because they were caught". Instead, the chief resigns, another takes a "leave of absence", and Gonzales gets in front of microphones and talks a lot about takin
Re: (Score:2)
It's interesting that in all the brouhaha Gonzales hasn't done the obvious: punish the people who made a "mistake" in determining "underperforming" attorneys [tennessean.com], and give the attorneys their jobs back.
I don't know how obvious that is, that they should get their jobs back. As to being fired: again, the transcript shows that Gonzales said it was Miers who had the idea and Sampson who carried it out, and neither one still has a job with the Executive Branch, as Miers was gone before this started, and Sampson already resigned. Not sure who else should be "punished," unless you mean Gonzales, but there's no evidence here that he determined who was "underperfoming."
Of course, I see no evidence it was a "mis
Re: (Score:2)
Well, fortunately for him, we know that he has no idea what his people were doing. We also know he's responsible for whatever his people do, as he's told us over and over.
Also fortunately for him, the administration is free to fire the attorneys at will, but for future reference they should at least avoid using terms like "insubordination" and "underperformance" unless they can back their words up.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, fortunately for him, we know that he has no idea what his people were doing.
Well, we do not KNOW he has no idea what his people are doing. We only know there's no evidence he knew who was being picked for firing, until that meeting when he approved their firing. But he might have known.
We also know he's responsible for whatever his people do, as he's told us over and over.
Sure. But there's a difference between being held responsible for wrongdoing of those under you, and what you were talking, which was punishing people for something they did with these U.S. Attorneys.
That said, I still see no direct evidence any of the U.S. Attorneys was fired for reasons that j