Alberto Gonzales publicly announced his resignation as Attorney General of the U.S. publicly today after having turned in his resignation in to Bush on Friday.
This is no victory for America. This is a shuffle of a sniveling little suck-up and power-hungry elitist to a duplicitous situational ethicist. Even his old school legal buddies abandoned Alberto months ago.
Those of you who read Build Peace regularly or have even read it a few times know that I am an old fashioned girl who believes in old fashioned politics at least as they are presented if not how they actually existed–The Great McGinty is one of my favorite films of all time- watch it for a refresher course on how politicians are created and the power of a single act — Simplification is dangerous in that “flip-sides” are far too simple of descriptive tools to ever be accurate… but the old
Democrats = Little Guys
dichotomy holds great appeal for me. That is how it was supposed to be in the world in which I was raised. Business versus the little guy. Nice and simple. But now what we have is:
Democratic Party = Enormous Business
Current Administration = Fascistic Corporatism
Chertoff was an architect for the Patriot Act. He co-authored that tool used for the atrocious and vile perversion of American Justice. The P.A. is the document that undercuts the great original documents upon which the idea that was our noble America was based.
Gonzales ruthlessly applied the Act, but a greater though less overtly arrogant evil in Michael Chaertoff is set to step into the Attorney General’s office. The bureaucrats who actually build a corrupt administration wield tremendous, underestimated power. Joe Demsey might have been talking about Chertoff and company when reviewing Zackary Shore’s book. “By creating a climate of distrust, uncertainty, and fear, his regime inadvertently denied itself the benefit of receiving important foreign policy information. Instead of performing their jobs, the first priority for career officers quickly became protecting their own livelihoods (and lives).”
Chertoff knows on which side his bread is buttered, and most assuredly works for his masters, and spews out what is advantageous to him at any given stage in his career. He played both sides after being brought in as a US Attorney in 1990 by Bush the 1st, then he was the sole US Attorney kept on by Clinton in ’93, but as the tide turned toward Republican control, his balance shifted to a more partisan stance with his appointment as special prosecutor for Whitewater as he chose to align with the single ascending master of the emergent species of Republican ideology. He currently serves no other master than Bushite Corporatism.
As author of the Patriot Act Chertoff should be considered more dangerous to have in the Attorney General’s slot than Gonzales.
A simple rule to follow is do not use an auto-mechanic who has named his or her business “Quality Mechanics,” or buy your veggies from the “Fresh Market,” or have your taxes done by “Value Accountants” — adjectives tend to only be put in names when the good or service marketed under the name lacks or falls short in that area. The name doesn’t require the adjective if the quality is present in the product or service. This axiom has never been better illustrated than in the case of the Patriot Act.
Another basic element of the Chertoff make-up seems to be his hesitation to act within clear bounds of authority and responsibility before checking with higher ups. Remember Katrina? Well it was Chertoff who effed-up royally and did not take the necessary steps to allow FEMA to begin to act (even under Brownie’s “heckuva job” type leadership) until days into the disaster.
Someone stop these people! House? Congress? Last year didn’t we as voters tell you loud and clear that we want all this ineptitude and all the duplicitous machinations stopped? I think so. If you are reading this it is your responsibility to make them listen to you and act to stop the Bushite’s in their tracks. Now!