ALL ABOUT CONVENIENCE

In news that is of local as well as national significance, many are already aware of the recent firings of eight US Attorneys, one of them being Nevada’s Daniel Bogden, an Independent. The Justice Department cited “poor performance evaluations” in the mass purge denying that there were any politics figuring into the decision.

Really? Did Daniel Bogden (and the others) actually suck that bad?

It would seem, contrary to the infallible words of Justice, that 7 of those 8 had good to excellent performance reviews and 6 out of the 8 were currently presiding over public corruption cases largely involving Republican lawmakers (link).

Kevin Ryan out of San Fran seems to be the only one coming close to sucking anywhere near the appropriate level for firing (doping clinics, indeed). There is also the very salient point that a firing of US attorney’s in such a manner is highly unprecedented (pdf is here), with only 3 leaving under similar circumstances in the last 25 years. Can they even get away with this? Of course!

From the 2006 USA PATRIOT Act Reauthorization–

(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), the Attorney General may appoint a
United States attorney for the district in which the office of United States
attorney is vacant.

(b) The Attorney General shall not appoint as United States attorney a person to
whose appointment by the President to that office the Senate refused to give
advice and consent.

(c) A person appointed as United States attorney under this section may serve
until the qualification of a United States Attorney for such district appointed by
the President under section 541 of this title.

Boy, I’m gettin’ that super secure feeling way down in my taint. Thanks Patriot Act! Thanks, Congress, for not reading it but passing it anyway–bang up job!

We then have the words of Mr. Bogden himself in a LasVegas Sun telephone interview where he was told following his dismissal that “my performance, and that of my office, was not the reason.”

So, just to be straight, we have Justice telling Congress and the rest of the world that it was job performance and not politics, while out of the other side of their mouth they tell the newly ousted attorney that it isn’t his performance and that the decision came from the highest levels. And then, what do you know, the Director of the Executive Office for US Attorney’s who carried out the action, Mike Battle, resigned (nothing fishy there whatsoever). Who is the Justice Department lying to and why is no one screaming for Gonzo to get his ass down there to answer for it?

Oh that’s right. We have a congress largely comprised of sand-ridden vaginas who don’t have the courage to stand up to themselves in the mirror, let alone stand up to the fascist neocon madmen running the place.

So if it’s not performance, and it’s not politics, what could it possibly be for? Seems an awful lot like we’re being set up for something does it not? In that vein, I’ll simply leave off with two things. The first are statements I’ve seen flying around many, many articles in recent days. These remarks aren’t prominent, mind you, but they have been printed widely.

From The Journal News–

Robert P. George of Princeton University, an increasingly influential thinker among conservative Catholics and Republican politicians, said that Giuliani’s best chance of winning the nomination would be if there is another terrorist attack in the United States.

Again, the words differ slightly from article to article, but the sentiment has been liberally scattered throughout the media apparatus. Lastly, I give you Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s former Security Advisor, generally bad dude in his own right, but certainly the polar opposite of stupid whom you generally do not find speaking from his rear, testifying in front of the Senate foreign relations committee.

If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a “defensive” U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Remember, docile citizen. It’s not political, it just happens to be very, very convenient and will come in handy during the next “domestic crisis”, to be sure.