There is an internet campaign making the rounds via email and blog claiming that Barack Obama is unpatriotic. One claim is that he’s actually a Muslim and that he was sworn into the Senate on the Koran. Another claims that he refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance. And yet another claims he is a racist Christian. And finally, that he refuses to wear an American Flag lapel pin. One of these claims is true.

He is not Muslim, much less a member of the strictly orthodox Wahhabi sect as one email has alleged. He was sworn into the senate on his own personal Bible. Senator Keith Ellison from Minnesota, however, is Muslim and was sworn in on a Koran owned by Thomas Jefferson. Being Muslim has no more bearing on patriotism than being Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, or Atheist. In a country founded on freedom of religion, the charge itself is unpatriotic.

Apparently he will not only say the pledge, but feels comfortable leading the Senate in the pledge on live cable television. No lack of patriotism there.

A racist Christian perhaps? Again, no. The church he belongs to may be pro-black but apparently not anti-white. Since when has being proud of your heritage become unpatriotic? If it is, we need to cancel all the summertime ethnic pride parades and festivals. Need to kick St. Patrick’s day to curb also.

He does, however, refuse to wear an American flag lapel pin. He told an Iowa television news reporter that such symbols

“became a substitute for, I think, true patriotism.” He added: I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest. Instead, I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great and, hopefully, that will be a testimony to my patriotism.”

He later told an audience during a campaign stop in Iowa:

“Somebody noticed I wasn’t wearing a flag lapel pin and I told folks, well you know what? I haven’t probably worn that pin in a very long time. I wore it right after 9/11,” Mr. Obama said. “But after a while, you start noticing people wearing a lapel pin, but not acting very patriotic. Not voting to provide veterans with resources that they need. Not voting to make sure that disability payments were coming out on time.”

It is true that Barack Obama won’t wear an American flag lapel pin. The question remains, is it unpatriotic? That depends on how you define patriotism. I’ll address that in my next post.

Monday, July 23rd
Attorney General Gonzales:

I could walk away or I could devote my time, effort and energy to fix the problems. Since I have never been one to quit, I decided that the best course of action was to remain here and fix the problems. That is exactly what I am doing.

Senator Whitehouse:

I don’t know how you can say you can solve the problem when it appears that you are in fact the problem.

Tuesday, July 24th
US News & World Report:

Senators pledged to get to the bottom of discrepancies in his congressional testimony about the classified terrorist surveillance program— which directly contradicts earlier testimony from former Deputy Attorney General James Comey. They would, (Senator) Specter told Gonzales, ‘see if your credibility has been breached to a point of being actionable.’

Wednesday July 25th,
USA Today:

Documents indicate eight congressional leaders were briefed about the Bush administration’s terrorist surveillance program on the eve of its expiration in 2004, contradicting sworn Senate testimony this week by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Gonzales doesn’t know how many attorneys he fired, won’t say who asked him to visit former AG Ashcroft in the hospital, and is again either committing perjury or just plain doesn’t know a damn thing about the meetings he’s been in or the job he does.

Back in April, I’d described when this whole thing began to break that the facts can only lead to one of three conclusions. Alberto Gonzales is either:

• incompetent
• competent but asleep at the wheel
• competent but a political lapdog for the White House

I had left out one other option because I didn’t think the facts warranted its’ consideration until now; Alberto Gonzales, U.S Attorney General, is lying under oath and therefore is a disgrace to his position, his profession, and most importantly to the Constitution he swore an oath to protect.

It is time for Gonzales to resign before he destroys what remaining trust and faith the American people have in the Department of Justice.

Sara Taylor, White House Political Director from 2005-2007, serves as a prime example of the cancer that has taken hold within the Bush administration. I wrote previously about President Bush’s placing political loyalty over his loyalty to his constitutional oath. That attitude seems to have permeated the senior White House staff also. Ms. Taylor, in an astonishing display of political reasoning, demonstrated that she doesn’t understand what taking an oath to the Constitution means. From the Boston Herald:

Loyal to Bush even outside the White House, Taylor at first refused to answer questions that might violate Bush’s claim of executive privilege and at one point reminded the committee that as a commissioned officer, “I took an oath and I take that oath to the president very seriously.

Senator Patrick Leahy had a clear, direct, and correct response to her assertion.

This is the actual oath taken by all officers of the executive branch.

I (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

The stunning part of this is not so much her bumbling response but that this was Bush’s political director until just a couple weeks ago. She was in charge of the political machinery at the White House and yet seems to be unable to grasp allegiance to country over politics. This has been displayed by the Bush administration before but I’ve always believed that they knew what they were doing. Sara Taylor’s answers were like those of Republican political zombie that Karl Rove grew in some remote corner of Area 51. Now I understand why President Bush’s staff remain so loyal. The real question is- who is the Zombie Master?

“Politics is the art of the possible” -Otto Von Bismark

There are growing number of folks with a full head of steam about impeachment. There’s impeachcheney.org. There’s impeachbush.org. The blogosphere is abuzz with the idea. The mainstream media is starting to discuss it. There’s actual articles of impeachment against Vice-President Cheney in the House, submitted by Dennis Kucinich and sponsored by nine other representatives. And it’s going to go nowhere.

Think it through. Let’s start with impeaching President Bush. Let’s say that someone introduced articles of impeachment in the House and the resolution began to take off. All you need is a simple majority to pass the resolution and since the Democrats control the 53% of the seats, it’s fair to say they can accomplish this.

Then it’s on to the Senate which is where the President would have to be convicted by a 2/3 majority. That’s a bit trickier. There’s 49 Senators from each party and two independents. It’ll take some convincing to get at least 16 Republicans to vote against Bush. But let’s assume you get 67 votes to convict and President Bush is removed from office or he resigns prior to the conviction.

The country would now begin to execute a change of course once President Cheney is sworn in. Right?

Impeaching President Bush is comparable to deposing the Queen of England- strongly symbolic but functionally pointless. President Bush is not this administration’s center of gravity. Dick Cheney exerts the real power and sets the strategic direction of this administration. Impeaching Bush without impeaching Cheney is nothing but political theater.

So impeach them both you say! Well ok. Let’s look at that.

Let’s say we got the articles passed in the House, and then the Senate voted to convict them both. Time to play “Hail to the Chief” for President Nancy Pelosi. The Democrat.

Do you think that the Republicans would willingly turn over the White House to the Democrats? Short of discovering Bush & Cheney in the Oval Office with pistols and machetes in their hands amongst bloodstained bodies, there won’t be anyone leaving office for the next 18 months. It’s just not possible.

This from Bloomberg:

A resolution to express “no confidence” in Alberto Gonzales, President George W. Bush’s embattled attorney general, was blocked by U.S. Senate Republicans who called it a meaningless gesture… Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell chided Democrats for “spending our time on a meaningless resolution about giving the president advice about who the attorney general ought to be.”

Apparently Senate Minority Leader McConnell feels that the Senate shouldn’t give advice to the President on who the Attorney General ought to be. He had no problem giving advice to the President about the same subject when he voted to confirm Gonzales two years ago.  Oh, and there is that politically inconvenient Article II Section 2 in the Constitution where the Senate is required to advise the President on his appointments.

Arlen Specter, lead Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, came right out and declared, “There is no doubt in my mind that there is no confidence residing in Attorney General Gonzales.” Senator Specter didn’t need a show of hands to know what the Senate thinks.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has a lot of explaining to do. The problem for him is it really doesn’t matter what the explanation is. He will end up either looking like a White House political lackey, disengaged leader, or an incompetent leader. Whether he actually did anything wrong depends on what you expect from the Attorney General.

If his explanation ends up being that his office didn’t compile the list of U.S. Attorneys to be fired but the White House did, then it’ll appear that the White House dictates his actions and requires him to remove attorneys who don’t meet the administration’s political litmus test. If the administration makes those kinds of decisions in the Justice Department, what do we need Mr. Gonzales for?

If his explanation is that his office did put together the list but he wasn’t really involved in that, then it appears he’s asleep at the helm of the Justice Department and it is actually being led by one of his subordinates. If his subordinates are making those kinds of decisions, what do we need Mr. Gonzales for?

If his explanation is that he was involved in making the list, then he appears incompetent for firing attorneys who reportedly were given glowing performance reviews by their immediate superiors. If he selectively fires some of his best performing attorneys for no apparent reason, then what do we need Mr. Gonzales for?

If they weren’t fired for poor performance, then what was it for? Yes, they serve at will for the administration. Yes, it is common to fire most, if not all of the attorneys when a new administration comes into power. But this is not a new administration nor did they do a blanket firing. It was very selective and involved only ten percent of the U.S. Attorneys. So what criteria were used and who decided to use it? It almost doesn’t matter, as far as Mr. Gonzales is concerned.

His testimony, regardless of what it is, will make him appear to be out of control of either his department or himself. If he’s out of control of his department, then ultimately he’s nothing more than a figurehead. If he’s out of control of himself, as demonstrated by firing some of his best performers, he’s not the kind of leader that would inspire his staff to excel.

He may not have done anything more malevolent than just being a very poor leader. Isn’t that alone reason enough to fire an Attorney General? It certainly took a lot less than that for him to fire a number of attorneys.