Wolfowitz & Gonzales

Two "loyal Bushies" are in the hot seat. Paul Wolfowitz, appointed to the World Bank to help minimize corruption, helped his girlfriend Shaha Ali Riza get a ginormous raise after she was transferred to the State Department. With her tax exempt status, she was getting paid about 50% more than Condoleeza Rice. [Source]

I'm not too worried about Wolfowitz. What I am worried about is the position of the U.S. in the World Bank. Traditionally, the U.S. has always gotten to choose the head of the World Bank. If the board-member countries decide that should change, that would be a blow to the U.S.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is in front of the Senate. He bragged "I prepare for every hearing," yet repeated the phrase "I don't recall" about 71 times. With him, the question is "Why were eight U.S. attorneys got fired recently?"

While it's normal for a new president to appoint a fresh round of federal attorneys after election, it's definitely not normal to dismiss them, especially for unclear reasons. Some attorneys with poorer performances were kept while at least a few of the eight's reviews showed they were doing quite well.

What everyone agrees but Gonzales won't say is that the firings were political -- that the fired attorneys weren't sufficiently loyal to the Bush administration.

Gonzales instead admitted "the process ... was flawed" but that "nothing improper occurred. U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president. There is nothing improper in making a change for poor managment, policy differences, or questionable judgement, or simply to have another qualified indiviudal serve."

Read that carefully, though. The phrase "serve at the pleasure of the president" is most often used when referring to Cabinet level secretaries. How odd, then, that Gonzales' said the firing list was compiled by former chief of staff (Kyle Sampson).

Pressed on why Milwaukee attorney Steven Biskupic was placed on, then later removed from the list, Gonzales said, "He would be best person [to ask] as to why Mr. Bikuspic was on a list or off a list or anybody else was on or off a list."

My gosh! First sassing off to the Senate and then pushing responsibility onto subordinates! Who exactly is running the show in Justice, Kyle Sampson or Alberto Gonzales?

Republicans on the committee appear eager to distance themselves from everything Bush. They see that unless they do something to keep anti-Bush sentiment from becoming anti-Republican, they'll lose out in '08.

Democrats, for their part, are angry that under the Bush administration the Justice Department has changed from a politics-free zone to a Bush crony playground. Instead of the historical "law above loyalty" role, since the Patriot Act the Justice Department has been more like "policy above principle."

Don't forget that there still remains the issue of missing emails. In addition to their official email addresses, a number of Justice Department employees had Republican Party addresses that they used -- supposedly -- to handle "sensitive," off-the-record correspondence. How "unfortunate" that those missing emails can not be recovered.

Well, these things happen, I guess....

(Note that the picture above was scanned from the Wisconsin State Journal. If anyone knows where I can get a digital copy, please comment. I'd be grateful.)