Iglesias speaks out
Iglesias says a whole lot in these few sentences. If only the TV put on all the real nformation instead of celebrity crap!
Here it is from truthout:
Loyalty is a virtue with limits. That was one of the many hard lessons from Watergate. In that scandal, some of President Nixon's staffers carried their loyalty to the president all the way to federal prison.
All federal prosecutors take a public oath when they assume office. I personally swore in about 30 new federal prosecutors during my tenure as U.S. attorney for New Mexico. The oath is to the U.S. Constitution, not to the president or his Cabinet.
Somehow Goodling did not understand this keystone concept. She appears to have placed her loyalty to the Bush administration and the Republican Party above any allegiance to the Constitution - which may have led her to believe that Bush acolytes would make the best federal prosecutors. Paradoxically, she knew enough of the Constitution to claim the protections afforded by the 5th Amendment - the right against self-incrimination.
I trust she now understands what is at stake in the U.S. attorney scandal: the rule of law, the independence of the prosecutor and the apolitical calculus of who should be prosecuted. Now, her immunity deal secured, she needs to seek redemption by clearly testifying about how my colleagues and I came to be placed on the to-fire list. It will demand moral courage, but she must name the political operatives regardless of where they sit in the West Wing of the White House. She needs, in the words of Isaiah the prophet, to "maintain justice and do what is right."
And what of the embattled attorney general? Will Gonzales stay on to be the only Cabinet officer to receive a no-confidence vote? I once said that I found Gonzales to be a personal inspiration. No one can deny him his life's story, which is the American dream writ large. It began in Humble, Texas, born of impoverished Mexican American parents. He, like me, is a veteran of the U.S. military. He went to some of the best schools in America, including Harvard Law. Yet, somewhere along the line, he drank the loyalty Kool-Aid. Watching him testify before the Senate and House was painful for me. He had been a trailblazer for the Latino community, and then, in the space of a few hours of tortured testimony, he became just another morally rudderless political operative.
Will he "cowboy up," as we say in New Mexico - that is, find the courage to do the right thing? Or will he make the Senate go right up to the precipice of a no-confidence vote?
Here it is from truthout:
Loyalty is a virtue with limits. That was one of the many hard lessons from Watergate. In that scandal, some of President Nixon's staffers carried their loyalty to the president all the way to federal prison.
All federal prosecutors take a public oath when they assume office. I personally swore in about 30 new federal prosecutors during my tenure as U.S. attorney for New Mexico. The oath is to the U.S. Constitution, not to the president or his Cabinet.
Somehow Goodling did not understand this keystone concept. She appears to have placed her loyalty to the Bush administration and the Republican Party above any allegiance to the Constitution - which may have led her to believe that Bush acolytes would make the best federal prosecutors. Paradoxically, she knew enough of the Constitution to claim the protections afforded by the 5th Amendment - the right against self-incrimination.
I trust she now understands what is at stake in the U.S. attorney scandal: the rule of law, the independence of the prosecutor and the apolitical calculus of who should be prosecuted. Now, her immunity deal secured, she needs to seek redemption by clearly testifying about how my colleagues and I came to be placed on the to-fire list. It will demand moral courage, but she must name the political operatives regardless of where they sit in the West Wing of the White House. She needs, in the words of Isaiah the prophet, to "maintain justice and do what is right."
And what of the embattled attorney general? Will Gonzales stay on to be the only Cabinet officer to receive a no-confidence vote? I once said that I found Gonzales to be a personal inspiration. No one can deny him his life's story, which is the American dream writ large. It began in Humble, Texas, born of impoverished Mexican American parents. He, like me, is a veteran of the U.S. military. He went to some of the best schools in America, including Harvard Law. Yet, somewhere along the line, he drank the loyalty Kool-Aid. Watching him testify before the Senate and House was painful for me. He had been a trailblazer for the Latino community, and then, in the space of a few hours of tortured testimony, he became just another morally rudderless political operative.
Will he "cowboy up," as we say in New Mexico - that is, find the courage to do the right thing? Or will he make the Senate go right up to the precipice of a no-confidence vote?
posted by progressivegrannie at 7:41 PM
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