White House counsel Harriet Miers has swan-dived over the side of the bad ship Bush. From the Washington Post:Republican advisers have been telling the White House to be ready for war, and many cited Miers as the wrong general. "The White House knew they needed to get a tough street fighter -- that's what this is about," said one such adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve access to the White House.If she was such a lightweight, then why was she nominated to the Supreme Court? I'd advise bloggers to look up old books and articles in which right-wing propagandists slam Clinton's defense efforts. Comparing those days with what's ahead should be fun.
The advice, according to this person, could be summed up this way: "You guys better lawyer up, and lawyer up in the right way. You better understand the need and the peril and the urgency. . . .
Either Miers has decided to get going while the getting is good (although she can still be deposed), or Bush "axed" her to leave so he could find himself a real lawyer. Or: She knows that something really big and bad is a-comin', and she wants no part of it.
The most welcome paragraphs in the Post piece reveal that Congressmen Waxman and Levin are readying themselves for investigations into Katrina, contractor fraud in Iraq (read: Haliburton) and detainee torture:
However, one sign that relations will be bumpy is a decision by House leaders to give Waxman's committee special authority to force administration officials to sit for depositions, a tool it last had under Republicans in the late 1990s.Heh heh. What goes around, comes around...
8 comments:
"Heh heh" indeed. The first of the rats to leave a listing ship. Hope it becomes a stampede. Thanks for a consistently interesting blog, Joseph.
i think it's bad news.
Negroponte the murderer is joining state.
I think domestic terrorism and then attempted martial law, but then again, i'm a cynic
I've been thinking about this strange resignation also, and I have one completely speculative guess about why she resigned: It's that she knows -- given the track record of this administration, it's disrespect for the law -- that whoever is going to defend the president and vice is going to be asked to do things that will eventually get them disbarred, like obstruct justice, disobey court orders and subpoenas, lie to investigators and so on. So far, she has been protected from the general criminality of the bush gang both by her attorney client privilege and by the fact that she is not in a policy making (ie potential for criminal behavior) position. But as the administration goes into legal defense mode, she would have to do things that are illegal for lawyers to do if she is going to keep bush out of impeachment proceedings, let alone the Hague or a treason trial.
I suspect that the administration's strategy has been sketched out to her and she said no thanks. If this is true, it will be interesting to see whether the administration is able to hire any lawyers who care about the long term viability of their licenses.
HamdenRice from DU
Hamden, so you think Harriet didn't
relish the prospect of a free
retirement home at Bush Estates in
Paraguay?
Heh heh...
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have just sent a letter staying that they will not support a troop surge in Iraq. They basically tell the Boy King that this strategy has been a failure in the past, and that it is time to focus on the needs of this country.
Finally, game on.
Kim in PA
She's 62, might she want to retire early? Can't say she wants to spend moretime with her family.
sofla said...
No reason to read anything into this. There's no reason to think she'd be forced into lying more than she already has, in re: Cemetary Gate, or really, at all.
People grow weary in the executive branch, and nobody, or hardly anyone, stays until the end (Janet Reno was one notable exception).
If she has any interest in continuing to work, she's the youngest she'll ever be again, and the whole WH hasn't come crashing down (yet) in a blaze of indictments, impeachments, and resignations.
Gettin' out while the gettin's good? Probably that's all there is to it.
However, as an intense Bush loyalist, she probably would stick around and rescind her resignation if Bush asked her to. Why HE didn't do that may be one of the reasons suggested, admittedly.
I wonder if she would have retired from the Supreme Court too?????? Good question ey?
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