Why Gonzales is Staying

By and large, I think Josh Marshall is right about Gonzales staying. If he were to go, there would be a full airing of all the Justice Department's dirty laundry. Right now, Gonzales is sitting on top of an absolute gold mine of Justice Department misdeeds and the Bush administration is not going to let that go public. Also, if he were to resign, the Democrats would be responsible for confirming his replacement and the replacement AG would almost certainly be more willing to work with Congress.

Double Super Secret Plans

The White House's plan for governing after a terrorist attack is so secret, not even members of Congress- who serve on the Homeland Security Committee are able to see it:

Constituents called Rep. Peter DeFazio's office, worried there was a conspiracy buried in the classified portion of a White House plan for operating the government after a terrorist attack.

As a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, DeFazio, D-Ore., is permitted to enter a secure "bubbleroom'' in the Capitol and examine classified material. So he asked the White House to see the secret documents.

On Wednesday, DeFazio got his answer: DENIED.

I am sure there is nothing to be concerned with here. Well, except for the fact that this is unprecedented-

Norm Ornstein, a legal scholar who studies government continuity at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said he ``cannot think of one good reason'' to deny access to a member of Congress who serves on the Homeland Security Committee.

"I find it inexplicable and probably reflective of the usual knee-jerk overextension of executive power that we see from this White House,'' Ornstein said.

I think the lesson to be learned here is that we should trust the President- unconditionally.

This Just Might be Something to Report

After a House investigation, we now find that the White House has been breaking the law with its usage of RNC email addresses. The Presidential Records Act stipulates that all executive correspondence be carried out on government property (email servers, stationary, etc.) and is archived. However, this White House has been blatantly disregarding that law. Here are some of the key findings in the investigation:

• The number of White House officials given RNC e-mail accounts is higher than previously disclosed.
• White House officials made extensive use of their RNC e-mail accounts.
• There has been extensive destruction of the e-mails of White House officials by the RNC.
• There is evidence that the Office of White House Counsel under Alberto Gonzales may have known that White House officials were using RNC e-mail accounts for official business, but took no action to preserve these presidential records.

These findings are pretty damning and I think will lead to some even more surprises. The White House was hiding all of these e-mails for a reason and it would be nice to find out why. Unfortunately, as I cruise the major news websites, this story has yet to break the front page.

Good News for News

I don't like to celebrate the failings of others, but I was happy to see this recent article in the Philly Inquirer:

CBS executives deny it, but there's a growing feeling within the network that Katie Couric is an expensive, unfixable mistake.

So unfixable that Couric - the first woman to anchor a network nightly newscast solo - may leave CBS Evening News, probably after the 2008 presidential elections, to assume another role at the network, CBS sources say.

I don't think the problem for CBS was bringing Couric in as their newest anchor. She seems like a very bright person who could otherwise easily handle the job handed to her. Rather, the problem lies with the decision by CBS News to soften their nightly news. Instead of reporting the news and offering well-thought out analysis, CBS went with a newscast that was heavy on features and half-assed opinions.

They abdicated their responsibility to the American people by insisting that their newscast entertain the audience as opposed to informing the audience. Major news organizations, following the lead of Fox News, have tried to build up fan bases. The news networks have become lifestyle brands and have done their best to segment their audiences based upon these lifestyles.

What this article suggests is that American people are beginning to resist the networks attempts to get away with this. After getting bogged down in a ridiculous war, we no longer want to be dazzled with the news. We want to be presented with the best reporting available so that we can make sane decisions. Thank God.

More on Gonzales

A couple of days ago I wrote that I didn't think Alberto G would resign. I know it seems strange since his performance was so abysmal; however, this was just a very public showing of how the Bush administration thinks. Dahlia Lithwick offers a nice analysis of this very point:

This record reflects either a Harvard-trained lawyer—and former state Supreme Court judge—with absolutely no command of the facts or the law, or it reveals a proponent of the unitary executive theory with absolutely nothing to prove. Gonzales' failure to even mount a defense; his posture of barely tolerating congressional inquiries; his refusal to concede that he owed the Senate any explanation or any evidence; his refusal to even accept that he bore some burden of proof—all of it tots up to a masterful display of the perfect contempt felt by the Bush executive branch for this Congress and its pretensions of oversight. In the plainest sense, Gonzales elevated the Bush legal doctrine of "Because I said so" into a public spectacle.

Viewed in that light, Gonzales did exactly what he needed to do yesterday. He took a high, inside pitch to the head for the team (nobody wants to look like a dolt on national television) but hit a massive home run for the notion that at the end of the day, congressional oversight over the executive branch is little more than empty theatre.