When Senator Dianne Feinstein, whose most powerful supporters (donors) are the huge California military/defense industry and AIPAC lobby, calls for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign for his role in the partisan purging of competent, capable, and productive US Attorneys, it is clear that Mr. Gonzales' partisan machinations - and obfuscation in testimony to the US Senate, bordering on obstruction of justice - are more than even 'moderately conservative' Democratic leaders can stand.
The White House's PURGE of US Attorney's was no more and no less than a systematic effort to take America back to the days of segregation; to the days of one party rule in the Deep South. Ironically, it was the DEMOCRATIC PARTY that once maintained one-party rule throughout the segregation era; for the former slave-states rejected out of hand all Republican candidates, as the Republican Party had been the party of Abraham Lincoln, emancipation, and the Civil War. But starting in 1948 (with Strom Thurmond's "Dixiecrat" defection from the Democratic Party; Thurmond ran in 1948 as the Dixiecrat candidate for continued segregation) the most reactionary and conservative leaders and voters departed from the Democratic Party... and wound up in today's Republican Party. (See Michael Lind's "George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics" for the sweeping history of neo-segregation politics in America and the Deep South from before the Civil Rights era to today.)
During the segregation era, the autocracy (the wealthy elite who controlled politics) could effectively DISENFRANCHISE millions of voters simply by smoothering any outspoken candidates in the Democratic primary, which was controlled by the eilte. This political tactic allowed segregation and disenfranchisement laws to remain as state laws despite America fighting two word wars to "make the world safe for democracy," and despite the 15th Amendment which declared unambiguously "The Right to vote SHALL NOT be abridged."
Today, the radical right-wing of the Republican Party wants to reassert some of that autocratic rule, by using the entire federal law enforcement structure - prosecutors, partisan judges, and US Attorneys - as an INTMIDATION and PERSECUTION arm of the Republican Party; to swing close races (races made close through years of Republican state and federal gerrymandering, see Tom DeLay gerrymandering of Texas only two years after a previous voting census) by INVESTIGATING leading opposition candidates in the weeks leading up to elections, forcing those candidates to hire legal counsel and rebut press stories of alleged (by partisan activists) "vote fraud."
USING US Attorneys as a strong-arm intimidator of Democratic candidates was at the very heart of the Bush White House PURGE of REPUBLICAN US Attorneys (Republican prosecutors who were not energetic and partisan enough at prosecuting hysterical allegations against Democratic candidates), and not only was Attorney General Gonzales party to that un-American PURGE, but he has repeatedly lied about his involvement in the purge to the press, public, and Congress.
--------------------------------------------------
Senator Feinstein calls for Attorney General Gonzales to resign
By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer
Sunday, March 25, 2007
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/03/25/politics/p071921D65.DTL&type=politics
Sen. Dianne Feinstein called Sunday for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign over the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, saying he'd lost her confidence and hadn't told her the truth.
Feinstein, D-Calif. and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had held off on calling for Gonzales to step down even as many leading Democrats and some Republicans did so in recent weeks.
"I believe he should step down. And I don't like saying this. This is not my natural personality at all," Feinstein said on Fox News Sunday. "But I think the nation is not well served by this. I think we need to get at the bottom of why these resignations were made, who ordered them, and what the strategy was."
Justice Department documents released Friday show that despite contending he was not involved in any discussions about the impending dismissals of federal prosecutors, Gonzales participated in a meeting where such plans were discussed.
Feinstein said that after seeing those documents she concluded Gonzales no longer should keep his job.
"Attorney General Gonzales has the view that he serves two masters, that he serves the president and that he serves as the chief law enforcement officer," said Feinstein. "He serves one master, and that's the people of this country."
Feinstein is particularly concerned over the dismissal of former U.S. Attorney Carol Lam in San Diego who was fired while prosecuting a corruption case stemming from the conviction of jailed ex-GOP Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.
Feinstein suspects a connection and highlighted her concerns about that and other aspects of the situation in a speech on the Senate floor in January. She also introduced legislation to undo a change in the Patriot Act allowing the administration to appoint U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation. After that she got a call from Gonzales.
"You have to understand, he called me when I began to become involved in this," Feinstein said. "He told me I didn't know my facts, I didn't know what I was doing. It turns out he wasn't telling me the truth then, either."
California also lost a second U.S. attorney in the group firing, Kevin Ryan of San Francisco.
A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to an e-mail message seeking comment Sunday.
The Justice Department has denied any connection between public corruption cases that Lam and other prosecutors were pursuing and their dismissals in December.
Feinstein's bill to reverse the Patriot Act language on U.S. attorneys passed the Senate March 20.
