NYT Editorial Tells It Like It Is

Today's editorial in the NYT seems almost historic as it reminds us how important the current Justice Department scandal is to all of us, whether we realize it or not. This is about basic integrity, which the Bush Administration constantly works to erode right before our very eyes every day of the week (as far as I can tell). Looking at the San Francisco Chronicle's website just now, the top headline is, "Bush Stands By Gonzales." That is just unacceptable given what we've seen from Gonzales throughout this business. If nothing else, he should be canned for incompetence (if you take his testimony at face value, which would clearly be naive at best). Please read the following:

May 21, 2007

The New York Times

Editorial

Why This Scandal Matters

As Monica Goodling, a key player in the United States attorney scandal, prepares to testify before Congress on Wednesday, the administration’s strategy is clear. It has offered up implausible excuses, hidden the most damaging evidence and feigned memory lapses, while hoping that the public’s attention moves on. But this scandal is too important for the public or Congress to move on. This story should not end until Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is gone, and the serious damage that has been done to the Justice Department is repaired.

The Justice Department is no ordinary agency. Its 93 United States attorney offices, scattered across the country, prosecute federal crimes ranging from public corruption to terrorism. These prosecutors have enormous power: they can wiretap people’s homes, seize property and put people in jail for life. They can destroy businesses, and affect the outcomes of elections. It has always been understood that although they are appointed by a president, usually from his own party, once in office they must operate in a nonpartisan way, and be insulated from outside pressures.

This understanding has badly broken down. It is now clear that United States attorneys were pressured to act in the interests of the Republican Party, and lost their job if they failed to do so. The firing offenses of the nine prosecutors who were purged last year were that they would not indict Democrats, they investigated important Republicans, or they would not try to suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning groups with baseless election fraud cases.

The degree of partisanship in the department is shocking. A study by two professors, Donald Shields of the University of Missouri at St. Louis and John Cragan of Illinois State University, found that the Bush Justice Department has investigated Democratic officeholders and office seekers about four times as often as Republican ones.

It is hard not to see the fingerprints of Karl Rove. A disproportionate number of the prosecutors pushed out, or considered for dismissal, were in swing states. The main reason for the purge — apart from hobbling a California investigation that has already put one Republican congressman in jail — appears to have been an attempt to tip states like Missouri and Washington to Republican candidates for House, Senate, governor and president.

Justice Department headquarters has become deeply partisan. Young operatives like Ms. Goodling were apparently allowed to hire and promote based on party membership. Political appointees cleared the way for laws designed to disenfranchise minority voters, and brought litigation to remove Democratic-leaning voters from the rolls.

The department’s integrity lies in tatters. As a result of the purge, Tim Griffin, a Republican operative and Karl Rove protégé, was installed as the top federal prosecutor in eastern Arkansas. Rachel Paulose, a 33-year-old Republican activist with thin prosecutorial experience, was assigned to Minnesota. If either indicted a prominent Democrat tomorrow, everyone would believe it was a political hit.

Congress has to save the Justice Department, something President Bush shows no interest in doing. It should pass a resolution of “no confidence” in Mr. Gonzales, and push for his removal. But it also needs to insist on new leadership that will restore the department’s traditions of professionalism and impartiality, and re-establish that in the United States, the legal system does not work to advance the interests of a political party.

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Billy Collins Poem About His Dog

Dharma

by Billy Collins

The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her doghouse
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example
of a life without encumbrance—
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Gandhi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she goes into the material world
with nothing but her brown coat
and her modest blue collar,
following only her wet nose, 
the twin portals of her steady breathing,
followed only by the plume of her tail.

If only she did not shove the cat aside
every morning
and eat all his food
what a model of self-containment she
would be,
what a paragon of earthly detachment.
If only she were not so eager 
for a rub behind the ears,
so acrobatic in her welcomes,
if only I were not her god.

(*Note: Jack Kornfield always reads the last line as, “if only I were not her fallible god.”)

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H.H. Dalai Lama--a Tibetan All-Star

I went to see the Dalai Lama for three days in a row this weekend (April 27-29) in San Francisco. On the last day, I happened to see him arrive at the back of the Bill Graham Civic Center. This is a photo I took of His Holiness signing a baseball (for unknown reasons). I asked one of the security guys if I could go closer to take a better photo and he replied that if I tried it, he would have to tackle me and then the FBI would be all over me in seconds. So I stayed put and zoomed in as much as I could. Hearing the Dalai Lama for three days in a row was a truly wonderful experience though. He has the greatest laugh and always says such positive things that we somehow all need to hear. Long may he live...

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