Where'sTheBork?
CoxPartDeuxVille.....But A Whimper
When the heat was really on, Richard Nixon resorted to a Massacre, Saturday Night Fever
style:
"On Friday night, October 19, 1973, President Nixon began what many people have since come to regard as the most reckless step of his political career. Plagued by the Watergate and related scandals, and ordered by the courts to relinquish the tapes of nine of his private conversations, Nixon announced that he had effected a "compromise" that would both allow him to maintain the confidentiality his office required and give Special Prosecutor Archibald V. Cox the material he needed to conduct his investigation at the same time.
Under the plan, Nixon would submit summaries of the relevant portions of the tapes to Judge John J. Sirica, and an independent verifier, Senator John Stennis of Mississippi, would be allowed to listen to the tapes to authenticate the version given the judge. It would be Nixon's last bow to Cox---the Special Prosecutor would have to agree not to use the judicial process to seek further tapes or other records of Nixon's conversations in the future.
Because of this shortcoming and others in the plan, Nixon's aides knew that Cox would not accept it. On Saturday, as he refused, White House chief of staff Alexander Haig ordered Attorney General Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson resigned instead. Haig then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire him, and Ruckelshaus also resigned. Finally, the number-three man in the Justice Department, Solicitor General Robert Bork, was named acting attorney general, and he fired Cox......"
Now the kicker here is what happened after.
Not in the Congress, or the Senate, or anywhere else in Washington for that matter.
But instead what happened out in the rest of the country, amongst the peons, far from the Halls of Power:
"...What came to be known as the "Saturday Night Massacre" then unleashed the torrent of public anger at Nixon that had been building across the nation. In a period of ten days more than a million letters and telegrams descended on members of Congress, almost all of them demanding Nixon's impeachment. Before long, according to some, there were three million letters and telegrams, and an impeachment inquiry was begun."
So the question is, is there another massacre coming for Patrick Fitzgerald, the special counsel who is putting a hammerlock squeeze on the Cheney (mal)Administration over the Plame Affair and other possible impeachable acts?
Well, if it is, it looks like it might be a slow, twisting in the wind that will bring Mr. Fitzgerald down this time around rather than a quick, messy bludgeoning.
Because, instead of Borking him, it appears that they are instead stripping Fitzgerald of his protector in the Department of Justice.
Specifically, the man who appointed Fitzgerald in the wake of John Ashcroft's self-recusal when it was pointed out he was in a conflict of interest, James Comey is stepping down.
And that leaves Fitzgerald in the hands of a DoJ that is now run by the memo-writer extraordinare, Alberto Gonzales.
And what's worse, Fitzgerald may actually be under the thumb of this paper-pusher:
"Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum is "likely" to be named as acting deputy A.G., a DOJ official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter tells NEWSWEEK. But McCallum may be seen as having his own conflicts: he is an old friend of President Bush's and a member of his Skull and Bones class at Yale."
Which has us worried that Fitzgerald's investigation may soon fall prey to extinction by a thousand memo-assisted paper cuts.
Which would be a great tragedy.
Not so much because it might prevent the indictment of all the deserving players/conspirators involved, but rather because it may work to blunt the American public's lion's roar that saved saved them from a constitutional crisis three decades ago.
And now, more than ever, America, as well as the entire world, needs to hear that roar.
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