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Eager to get some straight answers about a confusing issue, I called my favorite inside source, Ananias Ziegler, the retired lieutenant colonel who now serves as media relations director for the Committee That Really Runs America.
Are you calling to congratulate me for how we
out-hustled the Defeatocrats on the Iraq War funding
legislation?
Ziegler asked after the customary
pleasantries.
No,
I confessed. It was something
else.
Before I could explain, he interrupted. Then it must
be the immigration bill that has just been made public.
Finally, there's a legal path to citizenship, as well as
improved border security, and it's a bi-partisan solution
to a major national problem.
And you managed to say all that without using the
A-word that sets off certain Republicans,
I responded.
But even if that's the first half-sensible thing that
President Bush has supported in quite a while, that's not
why I called, either.
Then what is it?
an impatient Ziegler
demanded.
I called to find out when Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales will walk the plank.
Finally, I got it
out.
Ziegler laughed. Wouldn't you like to know? Besides
that, maybe one of you media jackals can tell me why it's
being labeled as a scandal.
That seemed like a silly question, and I told him so.
But where's the scandal?
Ziegler asked. The
U.S. attorneys, in charge of prosecutions in their various
federal judicial districts, serve at the pleasure of the
President, do they not?
Indeed they do,
I agreed. Many years ago, the
U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado told me himself
that he held a patronage job at the sufferance of President
Ronald Reagan.
Ziegler grunted agreement. So if the President can
fire any U.S. attorney at any time for any reason, and he
fires a few, how is that possibly a scandal? There nothing
illegal about that, and so there's no reason for all this
broo-ha-ha.
Wait a minute,
I protested. It's becoming more
apparent every day that many of the firings, maybe even
most of them, came about because the attorneys in question
refused to prosecute potential voting fraud with as much
vigor as the Administration desired.
And so what?
Ziegler snorted. There are
thousands of laws. No administration has the resources to
prosecute every violation of every law. You have to set
priorities. Different political parties have different
priorities. Democrats might put a higher priority on
consumer fraud and environmental violations, whereas many
Republicans believe that safeguarding the sanctity of our
electoral process deserves the most attention. Having
elections is one way we set those priorities, isn't
it?
When he put it that way, it was hard for me to respond,
but I did anyway. But wasn't the plan to use voter-fraud
prosecutions to discourage registration and turn-out, which
would presumably hurt Democrats in swing states, and thus
maintain Republican control?
Ziegler paused before mustering a hollow laugh. What
are you smoking, Quillen? Are you going to tell me now that
the Gulf of Tonkin incident 43 years ago was hyped by the
government? That Enron was a Ponzi scheme? Why don't you
get real here?
But you know that the politicization of the Justice
Department is a growing scandal,
I protested. So why
has Gonzales hung on so long?
Ah, Quillen, there's so little you understand about
Washington. Democrats don't really want Gonzales to go.
He's such a convenient target. It's a lot easier to point
fingers at Gonzales than it is to come up with a military
funding bill that supports the troops, arranges a way out
of Iraq, and can get signed by the President. When you look
at the bigger picture, Democrats are happy to see Gonzales
stay.
But what about the Administration?
I asked.
They can't be pleased by all this.
Again, Quillen, you need to wise up. If Gonzales is
getting all the attention, then nobody notices that there's
still a brutal civil war in Iraq. Nobody looks into why No
Child Left Behind keeps leaving children behind. No
questions about the Interior Department. You see, Gonzales
is just a powerful magnet for attention that might
otherwise go in more embarrassing directions. So of course
the President wants to keep him.
In other words, he performs a valuable service by
staying in office,
I concluded for Ziegler.
You got it.
He excused himself, for he had to
ghost-write a speech which explained why $4 gasoline was a
welcome first step in curing America's addiction to
oil.
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