Answering 'Why Now?' on Gonzales Resignation

Written by: Randal Helm on Aug 27, 2007 10:33 PM EDT

Linked to groups: The Young Turks ~ ENOUGH!

This is a cross-posting, original at Shadow-media.org

For those asking "Why now?" regarding the resignation of Alberto Gonzales today, let me lay out what I think is happening:

On July 11th, Michael Chertoff, or as he is more commonly known, "Skeletor", suddenly raised the anxiety of Americans by talking about his "gut-feeling" that there might be a terrorist attack. This touched off a flurry of discussions about whether or not we were safer, if an attack was impending, etc. This allowed the administration and the NSA director, Mike McConnell, the opportunity to ratchet up the rhetoric about our "safety".

A little less than a month later, in a tragic week for American democracy and civil-liberties, both The Senate and The House allowed themselves to be checkmated over the issue of warrantless wiretaps. They were so clueless, most of them seemed stunned, shocked even, that they had somehow inadvertently given the President (and more inexplicably the embattled Attorney General), more power than asked for, taking the FISA court out of the equation. Take this excerpt from an editorial in the Washington Post (all emphasis mine):

Administration officials, backed up by their Republican enablers in Congress, argued that they were being dangerously hamstrung in their ability to collect foreign-to-foreign communications by suspected terrorists that happen to transit through the United States. The problem is that while no serious person objects to intercepting foreign-to-foreign communications, what the administration sought -- and what it managed to obtain -- allows much more than foreign-to-foreign contacts.

The government will now be free to intercept any communications believed to be from outside the United States (including from Americans overseas) that involve "foreign intelligence" -- not just terrorism. It will be able to monitor phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens or residents without warrants -- unless the subject is the "primary target" of the surveillance. Instead of having the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court ensure that surveillance is being done properly, with monitoring of Americans minimized, that job would be up to the attorney general and the director of national intelligence. The court's role is reduced to that of rubber stamp.

Now that this has passed, and this new power has been given to the Attorney General, all they have to do is substitute another willing and able Bush crony, a la Michael Chertoff, or long-time Bush friend Clay Johnson, or...?

I wouldn't be surprised if it's done as a recess appointment. This seems to be what some of all of this was about (leaving Rove and Gonzales in place though they were taking huge amounts of damage for doing so).

Keep a close watch on who they put in place. I don't think it's a coincidence that as soon as they got their warrantless wiretaps legalized by the spineless Democrats, Rove and Gonzales quietly skulked out of town.

Why, you ask? Simple: Mission Accomplished.

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