Patterico, who really does do his best to be fair and reasonable (I think, at least) while defending this administration, has finally had enough and has thrown in the towel:
Guys:
I think the press has distorted some of the aspects of this case against you. And, for that reason, at least, I want to defend you.
But you’re making it really, really hard for me to defend you.
And I’m not your defense attorney. If I think you’re full of crap, I don’t have to defend you.
And, given that 1) at least one of you gleefully boasted that you planned to deceive Congress, and 2) I keep making arguments that get shoved back in my face based on your own actions — I’m kind of tempted to tell you to screw yourselves.
Love and kisses,
Patterico
The only question that remains is how long before the AG is known as Gonezo?
Pb
When you’ve lost Patterico
(and you’re a Republican), you’ve lost the country(and then some).Tulkinghorn
When you have lost Patterico, you have even lost the country club.
Perry Como
Typical of a far left wingnut like Patterico. How “honest” of him.
Pb
But seriously… Patterico’s not so bad most of the time, and sometimes he’s quite reasonable–but that 186k/s character? Totally bat-shit insane–either he’s a spoof, or he’s Darrell (or both!).
Andrew
You are Darrell.
Dreggas
Welcome to the Reality based community. Not that you really are changing your entire belief system but glad you put down the kool-aid.
jenniebee
Shoot, if I’m ever on trial for anything, I want the definition of reasonable doubt used to come to those conclusions (“I think of myself as reasonable and I doubt it”) applied to me.
Andrew
Come to think of it, two months of oversight and the right is running away from the administration faster than a Michael Vick 40 time.
John Cole
Patterico does try to be fair. That he sometimes is not is not the result of his not trying, though.
Hell, I try to be reasonable and fair yet often times am not.
Ugh
Heh.
jg
IIRC correctly Clinton was impeached for obstruction of justice yet the ‘evidence’ was a series of events that were never definitively connected but that suggested a coverup. Is the standard of evidence higher in cases involving republicans?
Tsulagi
I liked this about a chart sent to the WH discussing who should be fired…
Yeah, I’m sure his loyalty numbers took a hit during the Plame thing. Sort of like JAG Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift who after winning the Hamdan decision was forced out of the Navy.
This is a good one in the same WaPo article quoting from an email about one of the USAs the admin would soon fire…
Tells you how much performance and competence were ranked against loyalty and adherence to admin “initiatives.” Not even considered.
Tom Hilton
Cap’n Ed isn’t too happy either. Which leads to the surreal spectacle of him arguing with right-wing trolls in his own thread.
The ground really has shifted.
Punchy
Can we start the “Guess who’s the next AG” game now?
Here’s mine:
OBL–both him and Bush REALLY want the war in Iraq to continue
The Hamburgler–previous AG was a criminal, why not new one?
Carlos Mencia–previous AG was a Hispanic who said simply outrageously funny things, why not new one?
Don Rumsfeld–rumor has it he’s currently unemployed
Janice Rodgers Brown–couldn’t possibly hire anyone sane to do this gig, could he?
Albert Pujols–get his ass out of the NL Central, PLEASE
John Yoo–Yoo gotta be kidding me, right?
Sean Hannity–his carpentry skillz will be good enough to pass legal advice to the masses, methinks…
Did I miss anyone?
Pb
Harriet Miers — I hear she’s uniquely qualified, smart, capable, a pioneer, consistently ranked as one of the top 50 women lawyers in the United States, a leader in the legal profession. She’ll do a heckuva job.
Also, Brownie, Barney, and Darrell.
cleek
i kindof hope al stays, it’s fun to be able to call him ‘AGAGAG’. you can even sing it to tune of ABACAB:
when they do it, you’re never there.
when they show it, you stop and stare.
AGAGAG. he’s in anywhere.
AGAGAG. doesn’t really care.
if he was to leave, we’d have to call him Former AGAGAG, or ‘FAGAGAG’, which might offend someone.
Andrew
There are two basic reasons that right wing bloggers are taking reasonable positions and arguing with their loony toon commenters.
(1) They are making a principled position.
(2) They’re covering their asses because they know they’ll be proven wrong and stupid, otherwise.
I’ll give Ed Morrisey credit and say he’s #1, but Patterico is #2 and has always been #2. At least Malkin et al don’t pretend to be reasonable.
cd6
Sorry, but I have little respect who put up with years and years of Bush lies before finally going “I’m done with you guys because you make me look stupid when I defend you.”
Most of us caught on much earlier, and then, we got mad because we were being lied to and generally treated with contempt, not because we thought it was too hard to follow the ever evolving talking points.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration throws out habeus corpus and Patterico has his pantiest in a twist trying to out Glenn Greenwald sock puppets and outting Tbogg.
Patterico? Fuck Patterico.
Andrew
A dog named Gandalf just found a lost boy scout in the woods.
I think that Gandalf has made a good case, as a highly qualifed law enforcement officer, to be the next Attorney General. I figure his problem solving and decision making skills are already better than Gonzales limited repertoire, and think of what an AG with his scenting ability could o.
Pb
I think Rush Limbaugh essentially said the same thing–but don’t worry, he didn’t do anything about it, and besides, he’s always looked stupid. :)
Similarly, this is hilarious.
Tsulagi
Chertoff. Competing furiously among the under Bushlings for brain-dead leader and failing upwards.
neil
And I’m not your defense attorney. If I think you’re full of crap, I don’t have to defend you.
How amusing that the law-and-order Republican, Patterico, has been treating the Bush administration like a criminal defendant all along.
Matt M
I thought Gandolf was a wizzard?
The Other Steve
you should learn from Darrell. He always argues from Good Faith, because he truely believes the shit coming out of his mouth is fair.
Pb
Hey, I’ll have you know that my client is innocent until proven guilty!
… wait, would Patterico be in favor of impeachment too? At least then we could start to get to the bottom of this…
Tom Hilton
Ted ‘Bush v. Gore’ Olsen, who may actually be a serious candidate for the job. Because he’s so not a hyper-political hack…
Pb
Interestingly enough, Chertoff was one of those US attorneys who didn’t leave when Clinton didn’t replace all the US attorneys. Chertoff later repaid Clinton by becoming the Republican special counsel for the Whitewater Committee–that debacle stretched on for six years cost us $60 million dollars, and found precisely nothing, but at least it simultaneously smeared Clinton and kept a lot of Republicans employed!
Kimmitt
Patterico does try to be fair; however, his authoritarian leanings are nothing other than terrifying in the hands of a government employee. He’s a fair monarchist.
Tsulagi
I’m still not convinced he’s out the door even now. He is the most important person for Bush personally. Sure, they have someone just about as loyal in say Chertoff, but that guy is brain-dead incompetent. Gonzo may not have handled this too well, but he’s a master at moronarch executive findings and alternatively interrogating the Constitution.
Plus, I think it’s getting likely the WH at some point will put up the blast walls of executive privilege. Not just because of the attorney firings, but with the return of oversight it seems every admin rock they turn over has really ugly crawly things underneath.
There’s more to come, and you just know super smart Last Throes Cheney is getting really pissed now that his boy Libby has been wrested from his embraces by the evildoers plus all this other noise about holding them accountable. Gonzo would be helpful in writing findings telling everyone to fuck off.
Even if for show Bush tosses him under the bus, I’d bet they quietly contract with him as a highly paid consultant. Gonzo just has a certain flair in pissing all over the Constitution and laws of the land that Ashcroft lacked. Bush would weep if he no longer had his Gonzo.
Pb
In related news, here’s a sickening story — too much slime there and in the comments to spell it all out, but basically a heavyweight Republican operative and donor (Parsky) is in charge of picking / vetting the judges and USAs for California. Capitalism, baby, the best judicial system money can buy! And his 37 year old daughter… worked at the justice dept. (she was brought in there by Chertoff), and has now been promoted to Superior Court judge, go figure…
jg
The WH is in the early throes of a hissy fit. For ytears they’ve done what they wanted without having to answer to anyone they feel is important. Now they are being asked, constantly, about evey aspect of everything they’re doing and they’re freaking out. This is a group that doesn’t feel they owe the american public any explanation for their actions, they don’t think we have the right to even question their actions. This is why they don’t defend themselves Patterico. Defend themselves to who? Democrats? Congress? If the Nixon, Reagan and Bush W administrations haven’t made it clear to you that they have nothing but contempt for oversight and an obvious belief that the executive is the more powerful branch of government then you are blind. Or at least massively biased.
jg
From a different Patterico post on the same subject:
Why should Snow defend the WH when right wing bloggers and commenters will? You guys carry the water, you guys get soaked when the story continually change. You guys get screwed when it turns out they had no reason at all make up excuses for the firings since they are free to fire anyone they appointed at any time. but they made up a lie because they don’t feel we are entitled to the truth (Leo Strauss anyone) and the right wing noise machine will handle the opposition.
Thanks for playing, sorry you got injured.
Otto Man
The WSJ had a piece suggesting Patrick Fitzgerald would be a possible replacement. Nice to see they have a sense of humor.
RSA
WTF? If you follow the links through this several-hundred-word guide on cyberterrorist psyops, you get to a page that contains about four lines of Arabic script. I’m not casting aspersions on LGFers Middle Eastern language reading skills, but if the bad guys can express their thoughts about ten times as concisely as they appear in English, I think we’re at a significant disadvantage.
Pb
RSA,
I’m no Arabic expert, but I think that’s a login screen for vBulletin(R)–apparently, The Terrorists(TM) have PHP and MySQL too, we’re doomed!
Dreggas
Looks like things will get real interesting with Rove et al.
rawstory.com/news/2007/Conyers_Sanchez_to_seek_subpoenas_of_0320.html
Choice bit:
Oh no, not so fast, no closed door unsworn bs anymore. Welcome to the real world Shitheads.
Tsulagi
Not if we can keep them in Scottsdale, AZ where their domain is registered. If we do have to fight them here, writing off Arizona is a small price to pay.
numbskull
“Unsworn testimony behind closed doors” – Country Club Republicans: they just can’t get over the idea that they serve us, they are accountable to us, they are not royalty above question and certainly not above the law.
RSA
I’m a bit surprised at this strategy. When Congress says, No, we want public sworn testimony, the White House’s position of executive privilige is significantly weakened. It’s not, “We can’t tell you because it would under the President,” it’s now “We can tell you, just not in public, and we won’t promise not to lie to you.”
RSA
“under” should be “undercut”, above.
The Other Steve
Government should be afraid of the people.
Zifnab
I’m confident they’ll try that logic anyway, via their incredibly loud, incredibly wrong noise machine. See: “Upperdown Vote!” and “The Minority Is Our Bitch!”
The Republicans have done an epic job of flip-flopping on virtually every procedural issue.
Andrew
Ooooooo! Ooooooo! Can I play Natalie Portman??
Dreggas
TPM has it that Shrub is going to be making a statement around 5:45 EST to the press regarding the Atty’s.
Mike S
He’s just pissed that he wasn’t on the replacement list.
Maybe he can take over as AG. He should be partisan enough for Bush.
sidereal
I believe the more acceptable term is ‘Magic-American’
Teak111
What coming of course, is that the USA firerings had something to do with terrorism and therefore we can’t testify under oath in public without jeapordizing NS. You libs know so little about how to protect the country.
Dreggas
Mean Jean Schmidt hates our troops
p.lukasiak
to me, this is the ultimate impeachment opportunity…
1) supoena Rove. (Rove doesn’t show up)
2) cite Rove for contempt of congress — and tell US Marshalls to bring him to Congress (Justice Dept tells Marshalls to ignore the order.)
3) Cite AG for contempt, and tell Marshalls to bring him to congress. (Marshalls do nothing)
4) impeach Bush based on his refusal to enforce the law.
Keep it out of the courts entirely…. make the GOP congresscritters decide whether they want an “imperial” presidency that can ignore the demands of congress, or make a President answerable to congress.
jg
I have a problem with this idea….
ThymeZone
As do I, living and working as I do in the middle of the most populated area in that state.
Tsulagi
Freedom isn’t free. We would call on you to sacrifice for your country and thank you for your service. While the rest of us follow the president’s advice to keep on shopping.
Andrew
I’ll do my part! I need some new pants.
It was nice knowing you, Arizona!
The Other Steve
Do not be concerned, we shall ship a Freedom Medal to your widow.