Decline and Fall

Great piece of photoshop art from Stiftung Leo Strauss. More of their artwork here.

The worst Attorney General in American History has agreed to step down. I wonder how long it will be before he's officially persona non grata at the annual Straussian picnic?

I'm with Glenn Greenwald: it's time for the Democrats to grow a pair and block the hell out of whichever toadies Bush nominates until someone who isn't a member of the club is put forth:

It is difficult to overstate how vital this is. The unexpected resignation of Gonzales provides a truly critical opportunity to restore real oversight to our government, to provide advocates of the rule of law with a quite potent weapon to compel adherence to the law and, more importantly, to expose and bring accountability for prior lawbreaking. All of the investigations and scandals, currently stalled hopelessly, can be dramatically and rapidly advanced with an independent Attorney General at the helm of the DOJ.

That is not going to happen if the Democrats allow the confirmation of one of the ostensibly less corrupt and "establishment-respected" members of the Bush circle -- Michael Chertoff or Fred Fielding or Paul Clement or some Bush appointee along those lines. The new Attorney General must be someone who is not part of that rotted circle at all -- even if they are supposedly part of the less rotted branches -- since it is that circle which ought to be the subject of multiple DOJ investigations.

And don't tell me that congress can't afford to blow a bunch of political capital mucking up the political process while they, for "blindly partisan reasons," obstruct whoever the king deigns to nominate to be the next emanation of his will: despite the media spin, Congress's approval ratings aren't low because the American people really hate the ultra-liberal partisan politics and San Francisco values of Nancy Pelosi, they're low because they wish Congress would actually hold the Administration accountable instead of just talking about it.

Now is the perfect time for the Dems to show that they've actually got some convictions. The Fox/Limbaugh/GOP smear machine will go after them no matter what they do, but this time they've got a good, solid majority of America hoping they will step up to the plate.

Labels: Bush, politics