Itching For A Fight?

Judging by this email from the RNC, do you s'pose GOP poobahs are alarmed at the party's grassroots supporters', shall we say, dismayed reaction to the craven flaccidity with which congressional Republicans and even the Bush White House left Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales twisting in the partisan winds for most of the past week?:

Alberto Gonzales is a man of integrity and high ethical standards. He has pledged to cooperate with Congress and I am confident he will. I have said that it is irresponsible to pronounce judgment on the replacement of the U.S. Attorneys before we have the facts. Unfortunately, some would prefer to make political pronouncements instead of getting the facts. There is no question that U.S. attorneys, like all political appointees, serve at the pleasure of the President. That was true when Bill Clinton's Justice Department replaced all 93 U.S. attorneys, and it remains true today. The Democrats may feign outrage to distract from their discord on the serious issues our nation faces, but sooner or later they will have to face the real responsibilities of governing.

Below, please find the President's remarks on this issue that he made [Tuesday] night.

Sincerely,

Senator Mel Martinez
Republican Party General Chairman

I didn't watch Bush's remarks live, so I'll react to them here on the virtual printed page first:

Earlier today, my staff met with congressional leaders about the resignations of U.S. attorneys. As you know, I have broad discretion to replace political appointees throughout the government, including U.S. attorneys. And in this case, I appointed these U.S. attorneys and they served four-year terms.

Reiterates the baseline of this phony dispute. Very good, because with no criminal allegations, invoking executive privilege against the Donk subpeonas to Karl Rove and Harriet Miers will be airtight.

The Justice Department, with the approval of the White House, believed new leadership in these positions would better serve our country. The announcement of this decision and the subsequent explanation of these changes has been confusing and, in some cases, incomplete. Neither the Attorney General, nor I approve of how these explanations were handled. We're determined to correct the problem.

Too apologetic. They didn't owe anybody, much less the Democrats, ANY explanation for these personnel moves. Unfortunately, the "New Tone" compelled them to provide explanations anyway, and communication is for this White House like walking a straight line is for Ted Kennedy on an average Saturday night. Which, in turn, makes correction of the problem highly unlikely, since they don't even grasp what the true problem really is.

Today I'm also announcing the following steps my Administration is taking to correct the record and demonstrate our willingness to work with the Congress. First, the Attorney General and his key staff will testify before the relevant congressional committees to explain how the decision was made and for what reasons. Second, we're giving Congress access to an unprecedented variety of information about the process used to make the decision about replacing eight of the 93 U.S. attorneys.

In the last 24 hours, the Justice Department has provided the Congress more than 3,000 pages of internal Justice Department documents, including those reflecting direct communications with White House staff.

This, in itself, is an extraordinary level of disclosure of an internal agency in White House communications.

Way, way too much, IMHO. Sure, these disclosures document the utter falsity of the Democrats' hysterical allegations, which is all fine and good, but it also keeps this kerfuffle crackling indefinitely when what it really needs is to be starved of fuel instead. Or, put another way, there's no need for such defensive measures, or to try yet again to demonstrated how "fair" and "reasonable" they can be to people who don't have the first notion of what those terms even mean.

Did the great white shark go away when Chief Brody threw more chum in the water?

Third, I recognize there is significant interest in the role the White House played in the resignations of these U.S. attorneys. Access to White House staff is always a sensitive issue. The President relies upon his staff to provide him candid advice. The framers of the Constitution understood this vital role when developing the separate branches of government. And if the staff of a President operated in constant fear of being hauled before various committees to discuss internal deliberations, the President would not receive candid advice, and the American people would be ill-served.

Ah, if only he'd left it at that.

Yet, in this case, I recognize the importance of members of Congress having - the importance of Congress has placed on understanding how and why this decision was made. So I'll allow relevant committee members on a bipartisan basis to interview key members of my staff to ascertain relevant facts. In addition to this offer, we will also release all White House documents and emails involving direct communications with the Justice Department or any other outside person, including members of Congress and their staff, related to this issue. These extraordinary steps offered today to the majority in Congress demonstrate a reasonable solution to the issue.

However, we will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants.

You'll have to forgive me if I don't recognize the difference, Mr. President. Besides, it won't be enough for the Dems, and that'll just give the "controversy" longer legs.

The initial response by Democrats, unfortunately, shows some appear more interested in scoring political points than in learning the facts. It will be regrettable if they choose to head down the partisan road of issuing subpoenas and demanding show trials when I have agreed to make key White House officials and documents available. I have proposed a reasonable way to avoid an impasse. I hope they don't choose confrontation. I will oppose any attempts to subpoena White House officials. [emphasis added]

Hmmm. HMMM. Why do I keep picturing a matador waving a red banner in front of an angry bull?

I'll leave out the balance of the President's statement since it was basically a restatement of the quotes above. I want to come back to my matador/red banner/bull metaphor, which I can only partially claim. The imagery is mine, but the underlying theory was first floated by Dean Barnett, who did watch the President's presser:

Last night as I finally made my way back to the Sunshine State, I watched President Bush’s press conference in its entirety. At first I thought, “He doesn’t even care anymore.” The President was unusually feisty. But he was also charmless. I can’t remember any other time in his Administration when he’s made a public appearance and been so utterly indifferent to looking and acting nice.

And then I thought, “Shrewd.”

I would have thought, "FINALLY! It's about damned time!"

The President understands that, political obsessives aside, no one really cares about this U.S. Attorney thing....In short, there’s no Constitutional crisis to see here – just move along. But the President understands something about these Democrats who now sit on Capitol Hill. They were elected with a narrow agenda – Get Bush!!! And if you can’t get Bush, be damn sure to get Rove!

Partisan witch-hunts are to be the order of the day. The President also understands that the American public is predisposed to dislike Congress. What’s more, this Congress, once its true colors show, will be uniquely unpopular. Already, Gallup has Congress’ approval numbers sinking to the level the Republican Congress sat at before the November calamity. [Though there's some question as to whether that unpopularity is do to the Donks' partisan witchhunts or that they're not producing scalps fast enough.]

So why not pick a fight with Congress? Drag the bloody affair out. Let the battle rage so long that it becomes apparent that the only thing this Congress cares about is partisan warfare. What’s best about this little plan is it involves a freak side show in which the performers are Karl Rove and Harriet Miers. It doesn’t involve matters of real consequence such as the war.

Well, strictly speaking, it's Congress that has picked the fight with Bush. He would just be engaging them for a change. A move with so much novelty behind it that I'm eager to see it just for that reason alone.

Having said that, I don't think this White House would be particularly effective in such an inter-branch partisan scrum for the same reason that they got into this mugging in the first place: they're worse at communicating than a man with a hairlip in a restaurant trying to order Worchester sauce. The Clinton Machine they ain't, and unlike that bunch of virtuouso escape artists, the Bushies'll be fighting both master hearings-conductors and the Enemy Media, both rabid for Dubya's downfall.

I think the White House would be better off telling the Democrats to bleep off, invoke blanket executive privilege, and go into their favored rope-a-dope strategy. After all, it's not as though Bush's approval numbers can get much lower, or he's got Republican congressional majorities to worry about losing. Heck, he doesn't even have any Republican congressional defenders at all. So what would he have to lose?

Maybe that's what the President is planning with this "take it or leave it" offer. I just wish I could be confident that is what this is, or that the Dems could be lured into focusing on "Speedygate" to the exclusion of all their other partisan witchhunts. Because while it's never too late for the President to start fighting back against the DisLoyalists for whom destroying him has become a sacred crusade, the fact remains that he and his party are basically powerless, institutionally and spiritually. The latter is on another decades-long political exile, and the former really will be doing his best simply to serve out the balance of his term.

And don't forget that all of these partisan witchhunts have a 2008 component to them. That's what makes it imperative that the President (and the GOP remnant on Capitol Hill) do more than just play defense - they've got to "score political points" of their own so that, if nothing else, the Republican base has a reason to even bother turning out in nineteen months.

And that will not happen simply from the Democrats "showing true colors" that have been garishly on display all along.

UPDATE: The Donk reaction, in the form of a temper tantrum from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick "Leaky" Leahy, was predictable in sooooo many ways. First, there was this exchange between Leahy and "Snarlin' Arlen," the ranking Repubican on the committee:

SPECTER: If we don't like what we get, we can always issue a subpoena, and move with a subpoena if we don't like what we get.

LEAHY: That's not -

SPECTER: Why not - why not take what we can get in the efforts of -

LEAHY: No! What - no! What - No! What we're told we can get is nothing, nothing, nothing. We are told that we can have a closed-door meeting with no transcript, not under oath, limited number of people, and the White House will determine what the agenda is. That to me is nothing.

Wow. That's the kind of outburst I usually get from my twelve-year-old son whenever I tell him to do his homework, or put away the clean dishes out of the dishwasher, or get up, or go to bed, or pretty much anything he doesn't want to do, really. Fascinating seeing such open puerility coming from a top Donk senator.

What Leahy's pissed about is that the White House is telling him he can't have his de facto show trial of Karl Rove; he can't put White House lieutenants under oath in order to seed new Scooter Libby prosecutorial snipe hunts; the Bushies are not compliantly climbing the gibbet platform and inserting their necks into the Democrats' waiting nooses. That's what Leahy wants, that's what Democrats were elected to secure, and dammit, that's what he's going to get, or else....

Well, that's a good question, actually, since Congress has no constitutional authority to compel testimony under oath from White House staff in the absence of criminal allegations, of which there are none in this instance. That's what Leahy's demanded public hearings would be for, to generate more "process" crimes having nothing to do with the original topic of dispute. The White House has offered all that it reasonably can and still protect its separation of powers prerogatives, as any White House would do.

It would seem that Dubya has called the Donks' bluff. Assuming, of course, that he sticks to his guns on it. If he does, he might even start lifting up the "Grand Old Pussies" from under their desks and reinfusing some spine into them. If he doesn't....

Well, there'll be time to lament that soon enough.

UPDATE II: I guess the Democrats could always sue to force White House compliance with their subpeonas. Shouldn't be too hard to find a Carterite or Clintonoid judge to rule in their favor. And recent history shows this White House ALWAYS complies with court orders, no matter how unconstitutional. Only drawback for the Dems would be the time it would take for the appeals to reach the SCOTUS. Bush might be out of office by the time it gets to Olympus.

That would redundantly illustrate what a collosal waste of time the whole pointless exercise has been already. But you'll never convince the Democrats of that - or the majority of Americans who elected them to implement another partisan Reign of Terror.

At least GDub isn't going quickly into that good night.