gwb43.com = Watergate?

For the last few months, there has been the unraveling controversy swirling around the Department of Justice firing eight seemingly loyal and extremely qualified US Attorneys. The Democrats, in their supervisory role as the legislative branch (yeah!!! checks and balances!!!), are trying to figure out what the hell exactly is going on. Unfortunately for them, the Bush White House is being unnecessarily obstructionist in their actions. Instead of turning over necessary documents and other such things, they are putting up a wall and being unhelpful instead of trying to get this out of the way.

For the uninitiated to this whole fiasco, you need to go to TPM Muckraker, who first picked up on this scandal through the firing of the first attorney out in California Carol Lam. There are so many detail things and legalese statements that it would literally take computer page after page to being to get to the underbelly of this whole thing. You would be confused, and I would have carpal tunnel.

So, from where we are now, there has been the realization that the Bush Administration is involved, not necessarily directly but definitely not indirectly. There has been impropriety, but no one knows where it is coming from. Bush tried to offer a compromise by offering both Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and former White House Counsel and failed Supreme Court Candidate (due to her lack of qualifications) Harriet Miers to the Senate Judiciary Committee, but not under oath and with no transcript. Essentially, they could lie and totally cover their asses. With the Democrats soundly refusing this "deal," the Democrats have now asked for the email records of the persons who are most likely involved in this whole scandal. Unfortunately, those records have disappeared.

Yes, that's right! In the face of all logic and actual law, the White House has managed to "misplace" 5 MILLION e-mails from a two-year period between March 2003 and October 2005. I have emails from 2005. It's not that hard to keep them around. They are the Federal Government. If their email boxes were getting packed, they needed to sign up for some gmail accounts or something. Get some ads and learn how to actually run the country or meet some surrogate parents or something. Now, if I showed these facts to a tweener who cared more about Sanjaya's hair (which was actually quite good) than politics, she would know that this is fishy.

I will go a step further. This is Bush's albatross, his Watergate. He and his cronies attempted to be too slick, circumventing the standard White House services to use RNC provided ones. But, that tactic, along with being illegal, came back to bite them in the rear as they are not protected by the overused grail of presidential politics: the executive privilege. These emails are the new 18 minute gap (if you don't understand, read all the president's men, a great and quick read). Additionally, this is becoming the new 18 minute gap due to the ways in which the Administration is trying to be secretive about its action. If you don't believe me, read these comments from today's White House press conference.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales meets the firing squad in the coming weeks. I hope he has prepared thoroughly because there have been more questions raised than people offended by Imus's comments. There is more on this issue at Firedoglake. But, seriously, if you are interested in how your country has been destroyed by the Bush Administration (this is post-partisanship; this is about being an American who believes in Democracy), you need to start watching C-SPAN next week as the House and Senate both go back into session and this gains more traction.