I have been seeing a lot of reports on Alberto Gonzales as of late, but I have not dug up the whole sacking issue - can someone give me a run down?
QUOTE |
Alberto Gonzales Refuses to Resign Over Political Purging of U.S. Attorneys Newly released emails confirm the White House worked with the Justice Department to fire eight U.S. Attorneys. The decisions were made in part on whether the prosecutors "exhibited loyalty to the president and attorney general." On Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers said they now want to question White House adviser Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers. Ref. https://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/14/1323253 |
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Historically, bench seats are a nice gift for a lawyer friend that is loyal or helpful to the campaign. This has been a age old cronyism of the highest order. Most administrations are successful at doing this quietly. The firing come from their superiors and it isn't exactly trackable to the Whitehouse. However, in this case, they bungled it and the confirmed list got out on who was to be fired. Since these are mostly left overs from a previous (more than likely Democrat) administration, the democrats are all over this and calling for his head. The funny part is that this is also what Clinton did when he got to power, although a lot more quietly than this administration.
Basically, this is a display of hipocrisy on a bad tradition.
That is my spin on it...anyone else?
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True, there are laws about just firing. However, if you want to fire someone for any reason, it is easy to fire them. Basically, no one is perfect and if they start a documentation stream of what would lead to a firing, anyone can be fired. The best part about this documentation is that it really doesn't have to be totally about the job. It can be attitude. It can be decision making. It can be how others look at you...
Most of the time, it is done through the "legal" channels of your boss firing you. Trust me, if it is done right, the judges know it is coming long before they are fired. However, in this case, someone let the list out. So it shows the cooperation (that always was there to begin with) of the judicial branch and the executive branch in choosing the firees. Stupidity...plain and simple.
They always do this when there is a new administration and favors to be repaid. Classic cronyism!
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GONZALES APOLOGIZES FOR HANDLING OF DISMISSALS
Amid growing calls for his resignation, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales apologized to the nation's U.S. attorneys for his handling of the firings of eight people who used to hold the position, according to a Justice Department spokesman.
Ref. https://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/18/gon...logy/index.html
I really doubt the guy gets fired, but with the publicity that this has gotten because it was totally screwed up, the administration will definitely not be able to seat who that wanted to in those vacant positions. The administration should just surprise everyone (including me) and pick judges that are extremely middle of the road on judgements so that there can be no argument about their being chosen. However, that would be a very clever way to divert the matter, but somehow seeing how things are being done, I don't expect that they will do it. My advice would be to give up the cronyism on this one...you blew your chance...
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