More Banana Republic evidence

Sullivan and Marshall have recently made the analogy as well. Sullivan, in regards to the application and normalization of torture. Marshall, in regards to the politization of justice:

It's yet another example of how far this White House has gone in normalizing behavior that we've been raised to associate with third-world countries where democracy has never successfully taken root and the rule of law is unknown.

The revived Giuliani-Kerik controversy is also a good reminder of the cronyism and incompetence of this administration. This was the person that Bush wanted as Secretary of Homeland Security? A sign of how seriously President Bush took Homeland Security, indeed.

On the other hand, as some have pointed out, perhaps the Mob is the go-to organization as far as securing your Homeland is concerned.

I'd say that the biggest difference between first-world and third-world countries is good governance. Not that it is perfect anywhere, mind you, but the rule of law and competent administration count for a lot. And the US seems to have taken a large step backwards in the last 7 years.

The "Clinton Did It" defense

Don't let dishonest commentators (including Bill O'Reilly last night, and a Republican senator on NPR this morning) fool you when they point out that all 93 Federal Prosecutors were replaced by Bill Clinton and Janet Reno in 1993.

Every administration replaces all, or most of, the Federal Prosecutors when they come in. What is highly unusual is to pick and choose some to replace in the middle of an administration; even more so, when it seems based mostly on partisan considerations.

To pretend otherwise is part of the Big Lie. Here's a good blog post on the matter.

p.s. It appears that two prosecutors were fired under Clinton. Why? From this blog:

As it happens, the Congressional Research Service has just released a report on this. It appears two resigned under pressure – one because he grabbed a TV reporter by the throat on camera, and the second having been accused of biting a topless dancer.

What happened in Texas...

A depressingly revealing blog entry from the Washington Post, describing Gonzales' previous work for Bush while in Texas...

The AG's defense

Gonzales' press conference today: Mistakes were made, I did not take part in them, and the guy who made them has quit already anyway.

Right. Once can smell Karl Rove's imprint on this from a mile away, a carefully planned and coordinated political move, to politicize the justice system. Rove... what a pernicious, damaging influence on the way politics works in the USA.

It is also interesting to revisit Gonzales' op-ed in USA today defending this "overblown personnell matter". "Related to performance, not to politics"?

Salon don't like it either

From Salon (Joe Conason):

Loyal dissemblers like Gonzales can be found in every royal court and indeed are essential to the smooth functioning of any autocracy or banana republic. They are not, however, well-suited to overseeing the pursuit of justice and the enforcement of law in a democracy.

The Other Side of the Banana

We've heard about the fired prosecutors, who "lost the confidence" of Attorney General Gonzalez, some after disappointing Republican Senators by not bringing up Democratic indictments in time for the elections. Now folks are asking what the ones who were *not* fired were up to.

Looks like Democrats have become 7 times more likely than Republicans to become targets of local investigations - an old Rove trick, now institutionalized and enforced from the top?

How the Banana Republic works

Congressional hearings have produced interesting results.

See also this editorial in the New York Times.

No one is quite sure how the provision for letting the White House replace Attorney Generals without Congressional approval made it into the "Patriot Act" bill, but it looks like White House operatives were involved. Nice separation of powers, as Slate points out.