Boom
06-28-2007, 03:22 PM
Choose your source, doesn't matter.
Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,287113,00.html)
CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/28/bush.subpoenas.ap/index.html)
SHORT VERSION
Bipartisan congressional group issuing a very limited number of subpoenas to the Bush Whitehouse to deal with major gaps and inconsistencies in Congressional testimony regarding the illegal politicalization of the DOJ is totally unacceptable and a violation of executive privilege.
Republicans issuing over a thousand totally partisan subpoenas to the Clinton Whitehouse, collecting millions of Executive documents and getting hundreds and hundreds of hours of testimony from key staff, to investigate ridiculous crap like Christmas card lists is proper.
THE FULL STORY
Congress had been trying to get to the bottom of this DOJ debaucle. Unfortunately, all the testimony thus far has been conflicting so they are unable to get the truth. For example, no one can tell them where this list originated (because if it came from the Whitehouse, that would be a violation of the Hatch Act, and um... it looks like it came from the Whitehouse). Not only are all the witnesses conflicting with each other, some of them (Gonzales in particular) are repeatedly conflicting with their own testimony.
It is Congress's duty to provide oversight and ensure that the Executive branch is not politicizing the DOJ. It is their job. They have to do this.
This is not a partisan hit job. The subpoenas were authorized by a bipartisan committee with the support of some hardcore heavyweight conservative Republicans.
So now, the Bushbots are saying "Oh, you can't subpoena the Whitehouse. What about executive privilege?"
Let's look at what these Republicans thought about Executive Privilege during the Clinton Administration. The quotes below are from this Boston Globe article (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/20/congress_reduces_its_oversight_role/). If you think the Boston Globe is biased for some reason, all the facts are easily verifyable from numerous other sources.
The government reform panel alone, for example, issued 1,052 subpoenas related to investigations of the Clinton administration and the Democratic National Committee from 1997 to 2002, and only 11 subpoenas related to allegations of Republican abuse.
Anyone even remember what any of those subpoenas directed to Clinton were about? Of course not. They were all partisan attacks. None of them revealed any substantial wrongdoing. For example...
Back in the mid-1990s, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, aggressively delving into alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration, logged 140 hours of sworn testimony into whether former president Bill Clinton had used the White House Christmas card list to identify potential Democratic donors.
Turns out nothing wrong happened there. But it was worth getting 140 hours of sworn testimony from Clinton's staff. Of course, now when Democrats (with Republican support) ask for a few hours of testimony regarding major Constitutional abuses they are just distrupting government.
Speaking of distrupting government...
The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office has found that from October 1996 to March 1998 -- well before the impeachment hearings -- the Clinton White House staff had spent more than 55,000 hours responding to more than 300 congressional requests, and had produced hundreds of video and audio tapes, along with hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, to congressional investigators.
But that doesn't count as partisan attacks designed to distrupt goverment because it was done by Republicans and they are the good guys. Hell, they should have done more! Keep in mind, none of these requests came up with anything significant. They were all just partisan attacks to distrupt government. But now that Democrats (with high level Republican support) want to investigate the bald faced lies told to them under oath by Gonzales (please ask for examples, I dare you) the Bushbots are screaming "PARTISAN ATTACKS!"
Btw, the Republican Congress gets 140 hours of testimony on Christmas card lists, but only sought out 12 hours of testimony regarding Abu Ghraib abuses. Doesn't that seem to imply that they were more concerned with partisan attacks then truly performing their oversight role?
So what is Bush's official response to this request? What is his excuse for not obeying these subpoenas? Here is the statement made today by his attorney.
The reason for these distinctions rests upon a bedrock presidential prerogative: for the President to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among his advisors and between those advisors and others within and outside the Executive Branch.
Oh, I see. If you peek into a president's working documents and talk to his top advisors you are preventing him from getting candid advice and having open discussions. Let's see how that applied to Clinton.
The panel received more than 2 million pages of documents and heard from 44 Clinton administration officials, including two White House chiefs of staff, according to statistics culled by Democratic staff on the Government Reform Committee.
And that is just the government reform panel alone. It doesn't include all the other Republican congressional agencies constantly slamming Clinton with subpoenas and information requests on bullshit issues.
CONCLUSION
This type of hypocrisy is totally acceptable because some Democrats are probably hypocrites too. Stop being such a whiner.
Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,287113,00.html)
CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/28/bush.subpoenas.ap/index.html)
SHORT VERSION
Bipartisan congressional group issuing a very limited number of subpoenas to the Bush Whitehouse to deal with major gaps and inconsistencies in Congressional testimony regarding the illegal politicalization of the DOJ is totally unacceptable and a violation of executive privilege.
Republicans issuing over a thousand totally partisan subpoenas to the Clinton Whitehouse, collecting millions of Executive documents and getting hundreds and hundreds of hours of testimony from key staff, to investigate ridiculous crap like Christmas card lists is proper.
THE FULL STORY
Congress had been trying to get to the bottom of this DOJ debaucle. Unfortunately, all the testimony thus far has been conflicting so they are unable to get the truth. For example, no one can tell them where this list originated (because if it came from the Whitehouse, that would be a violation of the Hatch Act, and um... it looks like it came from the Whitehouse). Not only are all the witnesses conflicting with each other, some of them (Gonzales in particular) are repeatedly conflicting with their own testimony.
It is Congress's duty to provide oversight and ensure that the Executive branch is not politicizing the DOJ. It is their job. They have to do this.
This is not a partisan hit job. The subpoenas were authorized by a bipartisan committee with the support of some hardcore heavyweight conservative Republicans.
So now, the Bushbots are saying "Oh, you can't subpoena the Whitehouse. What about executive privilege?"
Let's look at what these Republicans thought about Executive Privilege during the Clinton Administration. The quotes below are from this Boston Globe article (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/20/congress_reduces_its_oversight_role/). If you think the Boston Globe is biased for some reason, all the facts are easily verifyable from numerous other sources.
The government reform panel alone, for example, issued 1,052 subpoenas related to investigations of the Clinton administration and the Democratic National Committee from 1997 to 2002, and only 11 subpoenas related to allegations of Republican abuse.
Anyone even remember what any of those subpoenas directed to Clinton were about? Of course not. They were all partisan attacks. None of them revealed any substantial wrongdoing. For example...
Back in the mid-1990s, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, aggressively delving into alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration, logged 140 hours of sworn testimony into whether former president Bill Clinton had used the White House Christmas card list to identify potential Democratic donors.
Turns out nothing wrong happened there. But it was worth getting 140 hours of sworn testimony from Clinton's staff. Of course, now when Democrats (with Republican support) ask for a few hours of testimony regarding major Constitutional abuses they are just distrupting government.
Speaking of distrupting government...
The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office has found that from October 1996 to March 1998 -- well before the impeachment hearings -- the Clinton White House staff had spent more than 55,000 hours responding to more than 300 congressional requests, and had produced hundreds of video and audio tapes, along with hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, to congressional investigators.
But that doesn't count as partisan attacks designed to distrupt goverment because it was done by Republicans and they are the good guys. Hell, they should have done more! Keep in mind, none of these requests came up with anything significant. They were all just partisan attacks to distrupt government. But now that Democrats (with high level Republican support) want to investigate the bald faced lies told to them under oath by Gonzales (please ask for examples, I dare you) the Bushbots are screaming "PARTISAN ATTACKS!"
Btw, the Republican Congress gets 140 hours of testimony on Christmas card lists, but only sought out 12 hours of testimony regarding Abu Ghraib abuses. Doesn't that seem to imply that they were more concerned with partisan attacks then truly performing their oversight role?
So what is Bush's official response to this request? What is his excuse for not obeying these subpoenas? Here is the statement made today by his attorney.
The reason for these distinctions rests upon a bedrock presidential prerogative: for the President to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among his advisors and between those advisors and others within and outside the Executive Branch.
Oh, I see. If you peek into a president's working documents and talk to his top advisors you are preventing him from getting candid advice and having open discussions. Let's see how that applied to Clinton.
The panel received more than 2 million pages of documents and heard from 44 Clinton administration officials, including two White House chiefs of staff, according to statistics culled by Democratic staff on the Government Reform Committee.
And that is just the government reform panel alone. It doesn't include all the other Republican congressional agencies constantly slamming Clinton with subpoenas and information requests on bullshit issues.
CONCLUSION
This type of hypocrisy is totally acceptable because some Democrats are probably hypocrites too. Stop being such a whiner.